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[See page 191 

THESE GAVE IT A BETTER HOLD 


\ 












IN DEFENSE OF 
HARRIET SHELLEY 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 


BY 

MARK TWAIN 

(SAMUEL L. CLEMENS) 



HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 






Books by 

MARK TWAIN 

LIMP LEATHER 


The American Claimant. 
12mo 

Christian Science. 12 mo 
A Connecticut Yankee in 
King Arthur’s Court. 
12mo 

Following the Equator. 

Vol. I. 12 mo 

Following the Equator. 

Vol. II. 12 mo 
The Gilded Age. Vol. I. 
12mo 

The Gilded Age. Vol. II. 
12mo 

The Man that Corrupted 
Hadletburg, etc. 12 mo 
The Adventures of Huck¬ 
leberry Finn. 12 mo 
Thf Innocents Abroad. 

Vol. I. 12 mo 
The Innocents Abroad. 
Vol. II. 12 mo 


Joan of Arc. Vol. I. 12 mo 
Joan of Arc. Vol. II. 12 mo 
Life on the Mississippi. 
12mo 

The Prince and the Pauper 

12mo 

Pudd’nhead Wilson. 12 mo 
Roughing It. Vol. I. 12 mo 
Roughing It. vol. II. 12 mo 
Sketches New and Old. 
12mo 

The $30,000 Bequest, etc. 

12mo 

Tom Sawyer Abroad. 12 mo 
The Adventures of Tom 
Sawyer. 12 mo 
A Tramp Abroad. Vol. I. 
12mo. 

A Tramp Abroad. Vol. II. 
12mo 


HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 

In Defense of Harriet Shelley and Other Essays 
Copyright, 1897, 1898, 1899, by Harper & Brothers 
Copyright, 1892, by C. L. Webster & Co. 
Copyright, 1898, by The Century Co. 
Copyright, 1898, by The Cosmopolitan 
Copyright, 1899, by Samuel E. Moffett 
Copyright, 1918, by The Mark Twain Company 
Printed in the United States of America 
b-s 

MAY -4 1918 

i’ ©Cl. A 4 9 7 2 91 

< t • 

4 

^€> \ 









CONTENTS 


PAGE 

In Defense of Harriet Shelley . i 

Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses .60 

Traveling with a Reformer.78 

Private History of the “Jumping Frog” Story . . . 100 

Mental Telegraphy .'.in 

Mental Telegraphy Again. 138 

What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us.148 

A Little Note to M. Paul Bourget.171 

The Invalid’s Story . 187 

Stirring Times in Austria.197 

The German Chicago.244 

Concerning the Jews.263 

About All Kinds of Ships.288 

From the “London Times” of 1904.313 

A Majestic Literary Fossil .329 

At the Appetite Cure.346 

Saint Joan of Arc.363 

In Memoriam.384 

A Biographical Sketch.387 




















Acknowledgment is hereby made to Harper & Brothers, The 
Century Company, The Cosmopolitan, and S. S. McClure & Co., 
for courtesy shown in allowing the reprint in this volume of a 
number of their articles. 


IN DEFENSE OF 
HARRIET SHELLEY 

AND 


OTHER ESSAYS 













































IN DEFENSE OF HARRIET 

SHELLEY 

I 

1 HAVE committed sins, of course; but I have 
not committed enough of them to entitle me to 
the punishment of reduction to the bread and water 
of ordinary literature during six years when I might 
have been living on the fat diet spread for the 
righteous in Professor Dow den’s Life of Shelley , if 
I had been justly dealt with. 

During these six years I have been living a life of 
peaceful ignorance. I was not aware that Shelley’s 
first wife was unfaithful to him, and that that was 
why he deserted her and wiped the stain from his 
sensitive honor by entering into soiled relations with 
Godwin’s young daughter. This was all new to me 
when I heard it lately, and was told that the proofs 
of it were in this book, and that this book’s verdict 
is accepted in the girls’ colleges of America and its 
view taught in their literary classes. 

In each of these six years multitudes of young 
people in our country have arrived at the Shelley- 
re&ding age. Are these six multitudes unacquainted 

i 


MARK TWAIN 


with this life of vShelley? Perhaps they are; indeed, 
one may feel pretty sure that the great bulk of them 
are. To these, then, I address myself, in the hope 
that some account of this romantic historical fable 
and the fabulist’s manner of constructing and adorn¬ 
ing it may interest them. 

First, as to its literary style. Our negroes in 
America have several ways of entertaining them¬ 
selves which are not found among the whites any¬ 
where. Among these inventions of theirs is one 
which is particularly popular with them. It is a 
competition in elegant deportment. They hire a 
hall and bank the spectators’ seats in rising tiers 
along the two sides, leaving all the middle stretch of 
the floor free. A cake is provided as a prize for 
the winner in the competition, and a bench of ex¬ 
perts in deportment is appointed to award it. Some¬ 
times there are as many as fifty contestants, male 
and female, and five hundred spectators. One at a 
time the contestants enter, clothed regardless of ex¬ 
pense in what each considers the perfection of style 
and taste, and walk down the vacant central space 
and back again with that multitude of critical eyes 
on them. All that the competitor knows of fine airs 
and graces he throws into his carriage, all that he 
knows of seductive expression he throws into his 
countenance. He may use all the helps he can 
devise: watch-chain to twirl with his fingers, cane 
to do graceful things with, snowy handkerchief to 
flourish and get artful effects out of, shiny new 
stovepipe hat to assist in his courtly bows; and the 
colored lady may have a fan to work up her effects 

9 





DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

with, and smile over and blush behind, and she 
may add other helps, according to her judgment. 
When the review by individual detail is over, a grand 
review of all the contestants in procession follows, 
with all the airs and graces and all the bowings and 
smirkings on exhibition at once, and this enables 
the bench of experts to make the necessary compari¬ 
sons and arrive at a verdict. The successful com¬ 
petitor gets the prize which I have before mentioned, 
and an abundance of applause and envy along with 
it. The negroes have a name for this grave deport¬ 
ment tournament; a name taken from the prize 
contended for. They call it a Cake-Walk. 

The Shelley biography is a literary cake-walk. 
The ordinary forms of speech are absent from it. 
All the pages, all the paragraphs, walk by sedately, 
elegantly, not to say mincingly, in their Sunday- 
best, shiny and sleek, pertumed, and with bouton¬ 
nieres in their buttonholes; it is rare to find even a 
chance sentence that has forgotten to dress. If the 
book wishes to tell us that Mary Godwin, child of 
sixteen, had known afflictions, the fact saunters forth 
in this nobby outfit: “Mary was herself not un¬ 
learned in the lore of pain”—meaning by that that 
she had not always traveled on asphalt; or, as 
some authorities would frame it, that she had “been 
there herself,” a form which, while preferable to the 
book’s form, is still not to be recommended. If the 
book wishes to tell us that Harriet Shelley hired a 
wet-nurse, that commonplace fact gets turned into a 
dancing-master, who does his professional bow be¬ 
fore us in pumps and knee-breeches, with hi§ fiddle 


MARK TWAIN 


under one arm and his crush-hat under the other, 
thus: “The beauty of Harriet’s motherly relation 
to her babe was marred in Shelley’s eyes by the 
introduction into his house of a hireling nurse to 
whom was delegated the mother’s tenderest office.’’ 

This is perhaps the strangest book that has seen 
the light since Frankenstein. Indeed, it is a Frank¬ 
enstein itself; a Frankenstein with the original in¬ 
firmity supplemented by a new one; a Frankenstein 
with the reasoning faculty wanting. Yet it believes 
it can reason, and is always trying. It is not con¬ 
tent to leave a mountain of fact standing in the clear 
sunshine, where the simplest reader can perceive its 
form, its details, and its relation to the rest of the 
landscape, but thinks it must help him examine it 
and understand it; so its drifting mind settles upon 
it with that intent, but always with one and the same 
result: there is a change of temperature and the 
mountain is hid in a fog. Every time it sets up a 
premise and starts to reason from it, there is a sur¬ 
prise in store for the reader. It is strangely near¬ 
sighted, cross-eyed, and purblind. Sometimes when 
a mastodon walks across the field of its vision it takes 
it for a rat; at other times it does not see it at all. 

The materials of this biographical fable are facts, 
rumors, and poetry. They are connected together 
and harmonized by the help of suggestion, conjecture, 
innuendo, perversion, and semi-suppression. 

The fable has a distinct object in view, but this 
object is not acknowledged in set words. Percy 
Bysshe Shelley has done something which in the 
case of other men is called a grave crime; it must 

x 


DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

be shown that in his case it is not that, because he 
does not think as other men do about these things. 

Ought not that to be enough, if the fabulist is 
serious ? Having proved that a crime is not a crime, 
was it worth while to go on and fasten the respon¬ 
sibility of a crime which was not a crime upon some¬ 
body else? What is the use of hunting down and 
holding to bitter account people who are responsible 
for other people’s innocent acts? 

Still, the fabulist thinks it a good idea to do that. 
In his view Shelley’s first wife, Harriet, free of all 
offense as far as we have historical facts for guidance, 
must be held unforgivably responsible for her hus¬ 
band’s innocent act in deserting her and taking up 
with another woman. 

Anv one will suspect that this task has its difficul¬ 
ties. Any one will divine that nice work is necessary 
here, cautious work, wily work, and that there is 
entertainment to be had in watching the magician do 
it. There is indeed entertainment in watching him. 
He arranges his facts, his rumors, and his poems on 
his table in full view of the house, and shows you 
that everything is there—no deception, everything 
fair and aboveboard. And this is apparently true, 
yet there is a defect, for some of his best stock is 
hid in an appendix-basket behind the door, and you 
do not come upon it until the exhibition is over and 
the enchantment of your mind accomplished—as 
the magician thinks. 

There is an insistent atmosphere of candor and 
fairness about this book which is engaging at first, 
then a little burdensome, then a trifle fatiguing, then 

5 





MARK TWAIN 


progressively suspicious, annoying, irritating, and 
oppressive. It takes one some little time to find out 
that phrases which seem intended to guide the reader 
aright are there to mislead him; that phrases which 
seem intended to throw light are there to throw 
darkness; that phrases which seem intended to 
interpret a fact are there to misinterpret it; that 
phrases which seem intended to forestall prejudice 
are there to create it; that phrases which seem anti¬ 
dotes are poisons in disguise. The naked facts ar¬ 
rayed in the book establish Shelley’s guilt in that 
one episode which disfigures his otherwise super¬ 
latively lofty and beautiful life; but the historian’s 
careful and methodical misinterpretation of them 
transfers the responsibility to the wife’s shoulders— 
as he persuades himself. The few meager facts of 
Harriet Shelley’s life, as furnished by the book, 
acquit her of offense; but by calling in the for¬ 
bidden helps of rumor, gossip, conjecture, insinua¬ 
tion, and innuendo he destroys her character and 
rehabilitates Shelley’s—as he believes. And in truth 
his unheroic work has not been barren of the results 
he aimed at; as witness the assertion made to me 
that girls in the colleges of America are taught that 
Harriet Shelley put a stain upon her husband’s 
honor, and that that was what stung him into re¬ 
purifying himself by deserting her and his child and 
entering into scandalous relations with a school-girl 
acquaintance of his. 

If that assertion is true, they probably use a re¬ 
duction of this work in those colleges, maybe only a 
sketch outlined from it. Such a thing as that could 

6 


DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

be harmful and misleading. They ought to cast it 
out and put the whole book in its place. It would 
not deceive. It would not deceive the janitor. 

All of this book is interesting on account of the 
sorcerer’s methods and the attractiveness of some of 
his characters and the repulsiveness of the rest, but 
no part of it is so much so as are the chapters wherein 
he tries to think he thinks he sets forth the causes 
which led to Shelley’s desertion of his wife in 1814. 

Harriet Westbrook was a school-girl sixteen years 
old. Shelley was teeming with advanced thought. 
He believed that Christianity was a degrading and 
selfish superstition, and he had a deep and sincere 
desire to rescue one of his sisters from it. Harriet 
was impressed by his various philosophies and looked 
upon him as an intellectual wonder—which indeed 
he was. He had an idea that she could give him 
valuable help in his scheme regarding his sister; 
therefore he asked her to correspond with him. She 
was quite willing. Shelley was not thinking of love, 
for he was just getting over a passion for his cousin, 
Harriet Grove, and just getting well steeped in one 
for Miss Hitchener, a school-teacher. What might 
happen to Harriet Westbrook before the letter¬ 
writing was ended did not enter his mind. Yet an 
older person could have made a good guess at it, 
for in person Shelley was as beautiful as an angel, 
he was frank, sweet, winning, unassuming, and so 
rich in unselfishness, generosities, and magnanimities 
that he made his whole generation seem poor in 
these great qualities by comparison. Besides, he was 
in distress. His college had expelled him for writing 

7 


2 


MARK TWAIN 


an atheistical pamphlet and afflicting the reverend 
heads of the university with it, his rich father and 
grandfather had closed their purses against him, his 
friends were cold. Necessarily, Harriet fell in love 
with him; and so deeply, indeed, that there was no 
way for Shelley to save her from suicide but to 
marry her. He believed himself to blame for this 
state of things, so the marriage took place. He was 
pretty fairly in love with Harriet, although he loved 
Miss Hitchener better. He wrote and explained the 
case to Miss Hitchener after the wedding, and he 
could not have been franker or more naive and less 
stirred up about the circumstance if the matter in 
issue had been a commercial transaction involving 
thirty-five dollars. 

Shelley was nineteen. He was not a youth, but 
a man. He had never had any youth. He was an 
erratic and fantastic child during eighteen years, 
then he stepped into manhood, as one steps over a 
door-sill. He was curiously mature at nineteen in 
his ability to do independent thinking on the deep 
questions of life and to arrive at sharply definite 
decisions regarding them, and stick to them—stick 
to them and stand by them at cost of bread, friend¬ 
ships, esteem, respect, and approbation. 

For the sake of his opinions he was willing to 
sacrifice all these valuable things, and did sacrifice 
them; and went on doing it, too, when he could at 
any moment have made himself rich and supplied him¬ 
self with friends and esteem by compromising with his 
father, at the moderate expense of throwing overboard 
one or two indifferent details of his cargo of principles. 

8 


DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


He and Harriet eloped to Scotland and got mar¬ 
ried. They took lodgings in Edinburgh of a sort 
answerable to their purse, which was about empty, 
and there their life was a happy one and grew daily 
more so. They had only themselves for company, 
but they needed no additions to it. They were as 
cozy and contented as birds in a nest. Harriet sang 
evenings or read aloud; also she studied and tried to 
improve her mind, her husband instructing her in 
Latin. She was very beautiful, she was modest, 
quiet, genuine, and, according to her husband’s 
testimony, she had no fine-lady airs or aspirations 
about her. In Matthew Arnold’s judgment, she was 
‘‘a pleasing figure.” 

The pair remained five weeks in Edinburgh, and 
then took lodgings in York, where Shelley’s college- 
mate, Hogg, lived. Shelley presently ran down to 
London, and Hogg took this opportunity to make 
love to the young wife. She repulsed him, and re¬ 
ported the fact to her husband when he got back. 
It seems a pity that Shelley did not copy this credit¬ 
able conduct of hers some time or other when under 
temptation, so that we might have seen the author of 
his biography hang the miracle in the skies and squirt 
rainbows at it. 

At the end of the first year of marriage—the most 
trying year for any young couple, for then the mutual 
failings are coming one by one to light, and the 
necessary adjustments are being made in pain and 
tribulation—Shelley was able to recognize that his 
marriage venture had been a safe one. As we have 
seen, his love for his wife had begun in a rather 
2 9 





MARK TWAIN 

shallow way and with not much force, but now it 
was become deep and strong, which entitles his wife 
to a broad credit mark, one may admit. He ad¬ 
dresses a long and loving poem to her, in which both 
passion and worship appear: 

Exhibit A 

O thou 

Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path 
Which this lone spirit travelled, 

. . . wilt thou not turn 
Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me, 

Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven 
And Heaven is Earth? 


Harriet! let death all mortal ties dissolve, 

But ours shall not be mortal. 

Shelley also wrote a sonnet to her in August of 
this same year in celebration of her birthday: 

Exhibit B 

Ever as now with Love and Virtue’s glow 
May thy unwithering soul not cease to burn, 

Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o’erflow 
Which force from mine such quick and warm return. 

Was the girl of seventeen glad and proud and 
happy? We may conjecture that she was. 

That was the year 1812. Another year passed—• 
still happily, still successfully—a child was bom in 
June, 1813, and in September, three months later, 
Shelley addresses a poem to this child, Ianthe, in 
which he points out just when the little creature is 
most particularly dear to him: 


10 







DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


Exhibit C 

Dearest when most thy tender traits express 
The image of thy mother’s loveliness. 

Up to this point the fabulist counsel for Shelley 
and prosecutor of his young wife has had easy sailing, 
but now his trouble begins, for Shelley is getting 
ready to make some unpleasant history for himself, 
and it will be necessary to put the blame of it on 
the wife. 

Shelley had made the acquaintance of a charming 
gray-haired, young-hearted Mrs. Boinville, whose 
face “retained a certain youthful beauty”; she lived 
at Bracknell, and had a young daughter named 
Cornelia Turner, who was equipped with many fasci¬ 
nations. Apparently these people were sufficiently 
sentimental. Hogg says of Mrs. Boinville: 

“The greater part of her associates were odious. I generally 
found there two or three sentimental young butchers, an emi¬ 
nently philosophical tinker, and several very unsophisticated 
medical practitioners or medical students, all of low origin and 
vulgar and offensive manners. They sighed, turned up their 
eyes, retailed philosophy, such as it was,” etc. 

Shelley moved to Bracknell, July 27th (this is 
still 1813) purposely to be near this unwholesome 
prairie-dogs’ nest. The fabulist says: “It was the 
entrance into a world more amiable and exquisite 
than he had yet known.” 

“In this acquaintance the attraction was mutual” 
—and presently it grew to be very mutual indeed, 
between Shelley and Cornelia Turner, when they got 
to studying the Italian poets together, Shelley, 

U 







MARK TWAIN 


“responding like a tremulous instrument to every 
breath of passion or of sentiment,” had his chance 
here. It took only four days for Cornelia’s attrac¬ 
tions to begin to dim Harriet’s. Shelley arrived on 
the 27th of July; on the 31st he wrote a sonnet to 
Harriet in which “one detects already the little rift 
in the lover’s lute which had seemed to be healed 
or never to have gaped at all when the later and 
happier sonnet to Ianthe was written”—in Septem¬ 
ber, we remember: 

Exhibit D 

EVENING. TO HARRIET 

O thou bright Sun! Beneath the dark blue line 
Of western distance that sublime descendest, 

And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline, 

Thy million hues to every vapor lendest, 

And over cobweb, lawn, and grove, and stream 
Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light, 

Till calm Earth, with the parting splendor bright, 

Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream; 

What gazer now with astronomic eye 

Could coldly count the spots within thy sphere? 

Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he fly 
The thoughts of all that makes his passion dear, 

And turning senseless from thy warm caress 
Pick flaws in our close-woven happiness. 

I cannot find the “rift”; still it may be there. 
What the poem seems to say is, that a person would 
be coldly ungrateful who could consent to count and 
consider little spots and flaws in such a warm, great, 
satisfying sun as Harriet is. It is a “little rift which 
had seemed to be healed, or never to have gaped at 
all. That is, one detects ” a little rift which per- 


12 




DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

haps had never existed. How does one do that? 
How does one see the invisible? It is the fabulist’s 
secret; he knows how to detect what does not exist, 
he knows how to see what is not seeable; it is his gift, 
and he works it many a time to poor dead Harriet 
Shelley’s deep damage. 

“As yet, however, if there was a speck upon 
Shelley’s happiness it was no more than a speck” 
—meaning the one which one detects where “it may 
never have gaped at all”—“nor had Harriet cause 
for discontent.” 

Shelley’s Latin instructions to his wife had ceased. 
“From a teacher he had now become a pupil.” 
Mrs. Boinville and her young married daughter 
Cornelia were teaching him Italian poetry; a fact 
which warns one to receive with some caution that 
other statement that Harriet had no “cause for dis¬ 
content.” 

Shelley had stopped instructing Harriet in Latin, 
as before mentioned. The biographer thinks that 
the busy life in London some time back, and the 
intrusion of the baby, account for this. These were 
hindrances, but were there no others? He is always 
overlooking a detail here and there that might be 
valuable in helping us understand a situation. For 
instance, when a man has been hard at work at the 
Italian poets with a pretty woman, hour after hour, 
and responding like a tremulous instrument to every 
breath of passion or of sentiment in the mean time, 
that man is dog-tired when he gets home, and he 
can't teach his wife Latin; it would be unreasonable 
to expect it. 


13 







MARK TWAIN 


Up to this time we have submitted to having Mrs. 
Boinville pushed upon us as ostensibly concerned in 
these Italian lessons, but the biographer drops her 
now, of his own accord. Cornelia “perhaps” is sole 
teacher. Hogg says she was a prey to a kind of 
sweet melancholy, arising from causes purely im¬ 
aginary; she required consolation, and found it in 
Petrarch. He also says, “Bysshe entered at once 
fully into her views and caught the soft infection, 
breathing the tenderest and sweetest melancholy, as 
every true poet ought.” 

Then the author of the book interlards a most 
stately and fine compliment to Cornelia, furnished 
by a man of approved judgment who knew her well 
“in later years.” It is a very good compliment 
indeed, and she no doubt deserved it in her “later 
years,” when she had for generations ceased to be 
sentimental and lackadaisical, and was no longer en¬ 
gaged in enchanting young husbands and sowing 
sorrow for young wives. But why is that compliment 
to that old gentlewoman intruded there? Is it to 
make the reader believe she was well-chosen and 
safe society for a young, sentimental husband? 
The biographer’s device was not well planned. That 
old person was not present—it was her other self that \ 
was there, her young, sentimental, melancholy, 
warm-blooded self, in those early sweet times be¬ 
fore antiquity had cooled her off and mossed her 
back. 

“In choosing for friends such women as Mrs. 
Newton, Mrs. Boinville, and Cornelia Turner, Shel¬ 
ley gave good proof of his insight and discrimi- 

14 





DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

nation.” That is the fabulist’s opinion—Harriet 
Shelley’s is not reported. 

Early in August, Shelley was in London trying to 
raise money. In September he wrote the poem to 
the baby, already quoted from. In the first week of 
October Shelley and family went to Warwick, then 
to Edinburgh, arriving there about the middle of the 
month. 

“Harriet was happy.” Why? The author fur¬ 
nishes a reason, but hides from us whether it is 
history or conjecture; it is because 11 the babe had 
borne the journey well .” It has all the aspect of one 
of his artful devices—flung in in his favorite casual 
way—the way he has when he wants to draw one’s 
attention away from an obvious thing and amuse it 
with some trifle that is less obvious but more useful 
—in a history like this. The obvious thing is, that 
Harriet was happy because there was much territory 
between her husband and Cornelia Turner now; and 
because the perilous Italian lessons were taking a 
rest; and because, if there chanced to be any respond- 
ings like a tremulous instrument to every breath of 
passion or of sentiment in stock in these days, she 
might hope to get a share of them herself; and be¬ 
cause, with her husband liberated, now, from the 
fetid fascinations of that sentimental retreat so 
pitilessly described by Hogg, who also dubbed it 
“Shelley’s paradise” later, she might hope to per¬ 
suade him to stay away from it permanently; and 
because she might also hope that his brain would 
cool, now, and his heart become healthy, and both 
brain and heart consider the situation and resolve 

i5 







MARK TWAIN 


that it would be a right and manly thing to stand by 
this girl wife and her child and see that they were 
honorably dealt with, and cherished and protected 
and loved by the man that had promised these 
things, and so be made happy and kept so. And 
because, also—may we conjecture this?—we may 
hope for the privilege of taking up our cozy Latin 
lessons again, that used to be so pleasant, and brought 
us so near together—so near, indeed, that often our 
heads touched, just as heads do over Italian lessons; 
and our hands met in casual and unintentional, but 
still most delicious and thrilling little contacts and 
momentary clasps, just as they inevitably do over 
Italian lessons. Suppose one should say to any 
young wife: “I find that your husband is poring over 
the Italian poets and being instructed in the beautiful 
Italian language by the lovely Cornelia Robinson” 
—would that cozy picture fail to rise before her 
mind? would its possibilities fail to suggest them¬ 
selves to her? would there be a pang in her heart and 
a blush on her face? or, on the contrary, would the 
remark give her pleasure, make her joyous and gay? 
Why, one needs only to make the experiment—the 
result will not be uncertain. 

However, we learn—by authority of deeply rea¬ 
soned and searching conjectlire—that the baby bore 
the journey well, and that that was why the young 
wife was happy. That accounts for two per cent, 
of the happiness, but it was not right to imply that 
it accounted for the other ninety-eight also. 

Peacock, a scholar, poet, and friend of the Shelleys, 
was of their party when they went away. He used 

16 








DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

to laugh at the Boinville menagerie, and “was not 
a favorite.” One of the Boinville group, writing to 
Hogg, said, “The Shelleys have made an addition 
to their party in the person of a cold scholar, who, I 
think, has neither taste nor feeling. This, Shelley 
will perceive sooner or later, for his warm nature 
craves sympathy.” True, and Shelley will fight his 
way back there to get it—there will be no way to 
head him off. 

Toward the end of November it was necessary for 
Shelley to pay a business visit to London, and he 
conceived the project of leaving Harriet and the baby 
in Edinburgh with Harriet’s sister, Eliza Westbrook, 
a sensible, practical maiden lady about thirty years 
old, who had spent a great part of her time with the 
family since the marriage. She was an estimable 
woman, and Shelley had had reason to like her, and 
did like her; but along about this time his feeling 
toward her changed. Part of Shelley’s plan, as he 
wrote Hogg, was to spend his London evenings with 
the Newtons—members of the Boinville Hysterical 
Society. But, alas, when he arrived early in De¬ 
cember, that pleasant game was partially blocked, 
for Eliza and the family arrived with him. We are 
left destitute of conjectures at this point by the 
biographer, and it is my duty to supply one. I 
chance the conjecture that it was Eliza who inter¬ 
fered with that game. I think she tried to do what 
she could toward modifying the Boinville connec¬ 
tion, in the interest of her young sister’s peace and 
honor. 

If it was she who blocked that game, she was not 

17 





MARK TWAIN 


strong enough to block the next one. Before the 
month and year were out—no date given, let us 
call it Christmas—Shelley and family were nested 
in a furnished house in Windsor, “at no great 
distance from the Boinvilles”—these decoys still 
residing at Bracknell. 

What we need, now, is a misleading conjecture. 
We get it with characteristic promptness and de¬ 
pravity : 

But Prince Athanase found not the aged Zonoras, the friend 
erf his boyhood, in any wanderings to Windsor. Dr. Lind had 
died a year since, and with his death Windsor must have lost, 
for Shelley, its chief attraction. 

Still, not to mention Shelley’s wife, there was 
Bracknell, at any rate. While Bracknell remains, 
all solace is not lost. Shelley is represented by this 
biographer as doing a great many careless things, 
but to my mind this hiring a furnished house for 
three months in order to be with a man who has been 
dead a year, is the carelessest of them all. One feels 
for him—that is but natural, and does us honor 
besides—yet one is vexed, for all that. He could 
have written and asked about the aged Zonoras 
before taking the house. He may not have had the 
address, but that is nothing—any postman would 
know the aged Zonoras; a dead postman would re¬ 
member a name like that. 

And yet, why throw a rag like this to us ravening 
wolves? Is it seriously supposable that we will stop 
to chew it and let our prey escape? No, we are 
getting to expect this kind of device, and to give it 
merely a sniff for certainty’s sake and then walk 

18 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

around it and leave it lying. Shelley was not after 
the aged Zonoras; he was pointed for Cornelia and 
the Italian lessons, for his warm nature was craving 
sympathy. 


II 

The year 1813 is just ended now, and we step 
into 1814. 

To recapitulate, how much of Cornelia’s society 
has Shelley had, thus far? Portions of August and 
September, and four days of July. That is to say, 
he has had opportunity to enjoy it, more or less, 
during that brief period. Did he want some more 
of it? We must fall back upon history, and then 
go to conjecturing. 

In the early part of the year 1814, Shelley was a frequent 
visitor at Bracknell. 

“Frequent” is a cautious word, in this author’s 
mouth; the very cautiousness of it, the vagueness of 
it, provokes suspicion; it makes one suspect that this 
frequency was more frequent than the mere common 
every-day kinds of frequency which one is in the 
habit of averaging up with the unassuming term 
“frequent.” I think so because they fixed up a 
bedroom for him in the Boinville house. One 
doesn’t need a bedroom if one is only going to run 
over now and then in a disconnected way to respond 
like a tremulous instrument to every breath of pas¬ 
sion or of sentiment and rub up one’s Italian poetry 
a little. 

The young wife was not invited, perhaps. If she 

19 






MARK TWAIN 

was, she most certainly did not come, or she would 
have straightened the room up; the most ignorant 
of us knows that a wife would not endure a room in 
the condition in which Hogg found this one when 
he occupied it one night. Shelley was away—why, 
nobody can divine. Clothes were scattered about, 
there were books on every side: “Wherever a 
book could be laid was an open book turned down 
on its face to keep its place.” It seems plain that 
the wife was not invited. No, not that; I think she 
was invited, but said to herself that she could not 
bear to go there and see another young woman touch¬ 
ing heads with her husband over an Italian book and 
making thrilling hand-contacts with him accidentally. 

As remarked, he was a frequent visitor there, 
“where he found an easeful resting-place in the 
house of Mrs. Boinville—the white-haired Maimuna 
—andnf her daughter, Mrs. Turner.” The aged Zo- 
noras was deceased, but the white-haired Maimuna 
was still on deck, as we see. “Three charming 
ladies entertained the mocker (Hogg) with cups of 
tea, late hours, Wieland’s Agathon, sighs and smiles, 
and the celestial manna of refined sentiment.” 
“Such,” says Hogg, “were the delights of Shel¬ 
ley’s paradise in Bracknell.” 

The white-haired Maimuna presently writes to 
Hogg: 

I will not have you despise home-spun pleasures. Shelley 
is making a trial of them with us— 

A trial of them. It may be called that. It was 
March n, and he had been in the house a month. 
She continues: 


20 









DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

Shelley “ likes them so well that he is resolved to leave off 
rambling—” 

But he has already left it off. He has been there 
a month. 

“And begin a course of them himself.” 

But he has already begun it. He has been at it a 
month. He likes it so well that he has forgotten all 
about his wife, as a letter of his reveals. 

Seriously, I think his mind and body want rest. 

Yet he has been resting both for a month, with 
Italian, and tea, and manna of sentiment, and late 
hours, and every restful thing a young husband 
could need for the refreshment of weary limbs and a 
sore conscience, and a nagging sense of shabbiness 
and treachery. 

His journeys after what he has never found have racked his 
purse and his tranquillity. He is resolved to take a little care 
of the former, in pity to the latter, which I applaud, and shall 
second with all my might. 

But she does not say whether the young wife, a 
stranger and lonely yonder, wants another woman 
and her daughter Cornelia to be lavishing so much 
inflamed interest on her husband or not. That 
young wife is always silent—we are never allowed 
to hear from her. She must have opinions about 
such things, she cannot be indifferent, she must be 
approving or disapproving, surely she would speak 
if she were allowed—even to-day and from her 
grave she would, if she could, I think—but we 
get only the other side, they keep her silent always. 


21 









MARK TWAIN 


He has deeply interested us. In the course of your intimacy 
he must have made you feel what we now feel for him. He is 
seeking a house close to us— 

Ah! he is not close enough yet, it seems— 

and if he succeeds we shall have an additional motive to induce 
you to come among us in the summer. 

The reader would puzzle a long time and not 
guess the biographer’s comment upon the above 
letter. It is this: 

These sound like words of a considerate and judicious friend. 

That is what he thinks. That is, it is what he 
thinks he thinks. No, that is not quite it: it is wjiat 
he thinks he can stupefy a particularly and unspeak¬ 
ably dull reader into thinking it is what he thinks. 
He makes that comment with the knowledge that 
Shelley is in love with this woman’s daughter, and 
that it is because of the fascinations of these two 
that Shelley has deserted his wife—for this month, 
considering all the circumstances, and his new pas¬ 
sion, and his employment of the time, amounted to 
desertion; that is its rightful name. We cannot 
know how the wife regarded it and felt about it; 
but if she could have read the letter which Shelley 
was writing to Hogg four or five days later, we 
could guess her thought and how she felt. Hear 
him: 

• •••••• § . 

I have been staying with Mrs. Boinville for the last month; 
I have escaped, in the society of all that philosophy and friend¬ 
ship combine, from the dismaying solitude of myself, 








DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

It is fair to conejcture that he was feeling ashamed. 

They have revived in my heart the expiring flame of life. 
I have felt myself translated to a paradise which has nothing of 
mortality but its transitoriness; my heart sickens at the view 
of that necessity which will quickly divide me from the delightful 
tranquillity of this happy home—for it has become my home. 
*•••••••• 

Eliza is still with us—not here!—but will be with me when 
the infinite malice of destiny forces me to depart. 

Eliza is she who blocked that game—the game 
in London—the one where we were purposing to 
dine every night with one of the ‘‘three charming 
ladies” who fed tea and manna and late hours to 
Hogg at Bracknell. 

Shelley could send Eliza away, of course; could 
have cleared her out long ago if so minded, just 
as he had previously done with a predecessor of 
hers whom he had first worshiped and then turned 
against; but perhaps she was useful there as a thin 
excuse for staying away himself. 

I am now but little inclined to contest this point. I cer¬ 
tainly hate her with all my heart and soul. . . . 

It is a sight which awakens an inexpressible sensation of dis¬ 
gust and horror, to see her caress my poor little Ianthe, in whom 
I may hereafter find the consolation of sympathy. I sometimes 
feel faint with the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my un¬ 
bounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But she is no 
more than a blind and loathsome worm, that cannot see to sting. 

I have begun to learn Italian again. . . . Cornelia assists 
me in this language. Did I not once tell you that I thought her 
cold and reserved? She is the reverse of this, as she is the 
reverse of everything bad. She inherits all the divinity of her 
mother. ... I have sometimes forgotten that I am not an 
inmate of this delightful home—that a time will come which 
will cast me again into the boundless ocean of abhorred society. 

3 23 







MARK TWAIN 


1 have written nothing but one stanza, which has no mean¬ 
ing, and that I have only written in thought: 

Thy dewy looks sink in my breast; 

Thy gentle words stir poison there; 

Thou hast disturbed the only rest 
That was the portion of despair. 

Subdued to duty’s hard control, 

I could have borne my wayward lot: 

The chains that bind this ruined soul 
Had cankered then, but crushed it not. 

This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, 
which passes away at the cold clear light of morning. Its sur¬ 
passing excellence and exquisite perfections have no more reality 
than the color of an autumnal sunset. 

Then it did not refer to his wife. That is plain; 
otherwise he would have said so. It is well that he 
explained that it has no meaning, for if he had not 
done that, the previous soft references to Cornelia 
and the way he has come to feel about her now 
would make us think she was the person who had 
inspired it while teaching him how to read the warm 
and ruddy Italian poets during a month. 

The biography observes that portions of this letter 
“read like the tired moaning of a wounded crea¬ 
ture.’ ’ Guesses at the nature of the wound are 
permissible; we will hazard one. 

Read by the light of Shelley’s previous history, 
his letter seems to be the cry of a tortured con¬ 
science. Until this time it was a conscience that 
had never felt a pang or known a smirch. It was 
the conscience of one who, until this time, had never 
done a dishonorable thing, or an ungenerous, or 

24 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


cruel, or treacherous thing, but was now doing all 
of these, and was keenly aware of it. Up to this 
time Shelley had been master of his nature, and it 
was a nature which was as beautiful and as nearly 
perfect as any merely human nature may be. But 
he was drunk now, with a debasing passion, and 
was not himself. There is nothing in his previous 
history that is in character with the Shelley of this 
letter. He had done boyish things, foolish things, 
even crazy things, but never a thing to be ashamed 
of. He had done things which one might laugh at, 
but the privilege of laughing was limited always to 
the thing itself; you could not laugh at the motive 
back of it—that was high, that was noble. His 
most fantastic and quixotic acts had a purpose back 
of them which made them fine, often great, and 
made the rising laugh seem profanation and quenched 
it; quenched it, and changed the impulse to homage. 
Up to this time he had been loyalty itself, where his 
obligations lay—treachery was new to him; he had 
never done an ignoble thing—baseness was new to 
him; he had never done an unkind thing—that 
also was new to him. 

This was the author of that letter, this was the 
man who had deserted his young wife and was 
lamenting, because he must leave another woman’s 
house which had become a “home” to him, and go 
away. Is he lamenting mainly because he must go 
back to his wife and child? No, the lament is 
mainly for what he is to leave behind him. The 
physical comforts of the house? No, in his life he 
had never attached importance to such things. 

3 25 








MARK TWAIN 


Then the thing which he grieves to leave is narrowed 
down to a person—to the person whose “dewy 
looks” had sunk into his breast, and whose seducing 
words had “stirred poison there.” 

He was ashamed of himself, his conscience was 
upbraiding him. He was the slave of a degrading 
love; he was drunk with his passion, the real Shel¬ 
ley was in temporary eclipse. This is the verdict 
which his previous history must certainly deliver 
upon this episode, I think. 

One must be allowed to assist himself with conjec¬ 
tures like these when trying to find his way through 
a literary swamp which has so many misleading 
finger-boards up as this book is furnished with. 

We have now arrived at a part of the swamp 
where the difficulties and perplexities are going to 
be greater than any we have yet met with—where, 
indeed, the finger-boards are multitudinous, and the 
most of them pointing diligently in the wrong direc¬ 
tion. We are to be told by the biography why 
Shelley deserted his wife and child and took up with 
Cornelia Turner and Italian. It was not on account 
of Cornelia’s sighs and sentimentalities and tea and 
manna and late hours and soft and sweet and indus¬ 
trious enticements; no, it was because “his happi¬ 
ness in his home had been wounded and bruised 
almost to death.” 

It had been wounded and bruised almost to death 
in this way: 

ist. Harriet persuaded him to set up a carriage. 

2d. After the intrusion of the baby, Harriet 
stopped reading aloud and studying. 

26 





DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

3d. Harriets walks with Hogg “commonly con¬ 
ducted us to some fashionable bonnet-shop.” 

4th. Harriet hired a wet-nurse. 

5 th. When an operation was being performed 
upon the baby, “ Harriet stood by, narrowly ob¬ 
serving all that was done, but, to the astonishment 
of the operator, betraying not the smallest sign of 
emotion.” 

6th. Eliza Westbrook, sister-in-law, was still of the 
household. 

The evidence against Harriet Shelley is all in; 
there is no more. Upon these six counts she stands 
indicted of the crime of driving her husband into 
that sty at Bracknell; and this crime, by these helps, 
the biographical prosecuting attorney has set himself 
the task of proving upon her. 

Does the biographer call himself the attorney for 
the prosecution? No, only to himself, privately; 
publicly he is the passionless, disinterested, impartial 
judge on the bench. He holds up his judicial scales 
before the world, that all may see; and it all tries 
to look so fair that a blind person would sometimes 
fail to see him slip the false weights in. 

Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 
and bruised almost to death, first, because Harriet 
had persuaded him to set up a carriage. I cannot 
discover that any evidence is offered that she asked 
him to set up a carriage. Still, if she did, was it a 
heavy offense? Was it unique? Other young wives 
had committed it before, others have committed it 
since. Shelley had dearly loved her in those Lon¬ 
don days; possibly he set up the carriage gladly to 

27 






MARK TWAIN 


please her; affectionate young husbands do such 
things. When Shelley ran away with another girl, 
by and by, this girl persuaded him to pour the price 
of many carriages and many horses down the 
bottomless well of her father’s debts, but this im¬ 
partial judge finds no fault with that. Once she 
appeals to Shelley to raise money—necessarily by 
borrowing, there was no other way—to pay her 
father’s debts with at a time when Shelley was in 
danger of being arrested and imprisoned for his own 
debts; yet the good judge finds no fault with her 
even for this. 

First and last, Shelley emptied into that rapacious 
mendicant’s lap a sum which cost him—for he 
borrowed it at ruinous rates—from eighty to one 
hundred thousand dollars. But it was Mary God¬ 
win’s papa, the supplications were often sent through 
Mary, the good judge is Mary’s strenuous friend, 
so Mary gets no censures. On the Continent Mary 
rode in her private carriage , built, as Shelley boasts, 
“by one of the best makers in Bond Street,” yet the 
good judge makes not even a passing comment on this 
iniquity. Let us throw out Count No. i against 
Harriet Shelley as being far-fetched and frivolous. 

Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 
and bruised almost to death, secondly, because 
Harriet’s studies “had dwindled away to nothing, 
Bysshe had ceased to express any interest in them.” 
At what time was this? It was when Harriet “had 
fully recovered from the fatigue of her first effort of 
maternity, . . . and was now in full force, vigor, 
and effect.” Very well, the baby was born two days 

28 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

before the close of June. It took the mother a month 
to get back her full force, vigor, and effect; this 
brings us to July 27th and the deadly Cornelia. If 
a wife of eighteen is studying with her husband and 
he gets smitten with another woman, isn’t he likely 
to lose interest in his wife’s studies for that reason, 
and is not his wife’s interest in her studies likely to 
languish for the same reason? Would not the mere 
sight of those books of hers sharpen the pain that 
is in her heart? This sudden breaking down of a 
mutual intellectual interest of two years’ standing is 
coincident with Shelley’s re-encounter with Cornelia; 
and we are allowed to gather from that time forth 
for nearly two months he did all his studying in 
that person’s society. We feel at liberty to rule 
out Count No. 2 from the indictment against 
Harriet. 

Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 
and bruised almost to death, thirdly, because Har¬ 
riet’s walks with Hogg commonly led to some fashion¬ 
able bonnet-shop. I offer no palliation; I only ask 
why the dispassionate, impartial judge did not offer 
one himself—merely, I mean, to offset his leniency 
in a similar case or two where the girl who ran away 
with Harriet’s husband was the shopper. There are 
several occasions where she interested herself with 
shopping—among them being walks which ended at 
the bonnet-shop—yet in none of these cases does she 
get a word of blame from the good judge, while in 
one of them he covers the deed with a justifying 
remark, she doing the shopping that time to find 
easement for her mind, her child having died. 

29 





MARK TWAIN 


Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 
and bruised almost to death, fourthly, by the intro¬ 
duction there of a wet-nurse. The wet-nurse was 
introduced at the time of the Edinburgh sojourn, 
immediately after Shelley had been enjoying the two 
months of study with Cornelia which broke up his 
wife’s studies and destroyed his personal interest in 
them. Why, by this time, nothing that Shelley’s 
wife could do would have been satisfactory to him, 
for he was in love with another woman, and was 
never going to be contented again until he got back 
to her. If he had been still in love with his wife 
it is not easily conceivable that he would care much 
who nursed the baby, provided the baby was well 
nursed. Harriet’s jealousy was assuredly voicing 
itself now, Shelley’s conscience was assuredly nagging 
him, pestering him, persecuting him. Shelley needed 
excuses for his altered attitude toward his wife; 
Providence pitied him and sent the wet-nurse. If 
Providence had sent him a cotton doughnut it would 
have answered just as well; all he wanted was some¬ 
thing to find fault with. 

Shelley’s happiness in his home had been wounded 
and bruised almost to death, fifthly, because Harriet 
narrowly watched a surgical operation which was 
being performed upon her child, and, “to the aston¬ 
ishment of the operator,” who was watching Harriet 
instead of attending to his operation, she betrayed 
“not the smallest sign of emotion.” The author of 
this biography was not ashamed to set down that 
exultant slander. He was apparently not aware that 
rt was a small business to bring into his court a wit- 

30 




DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

ness whose name he does not know, and whose 
character and veracity there is none to vouch for, 
and allow him to strike this blow at the mother- 
heart of this friendless girl. The biographer says, 
“We may not infer from this that Harriet did not 
feel”—why put it in, then?—“but we learn that 
those about her could believe her to be hard and 
insensible.” Who were those who were about her? 
Her husband? He hated her now, because he was 
in love elsewhere. Her sister ? Of course that is not 
charged. Peacock? Peacock does not testify. The 
wet-nurse ? She does not testify. If any others were 
there we have no mention of them. “Those about 
her ” are reduced to one person—her husband. Who 
reports the circumstance? It is Hogg. Perhaps he 
was there—we do not know. But if he was, he 
still got his information at second hand, as it was 
the operator who noticed Harriet’s lack of emotion, 
not himself. Hogg is not given to saying kind things 
when Harriet is his subject. He may have said them 
the time that he tried to tempt her to soil her honor, 
but after that he mentions her usually with a sneer. 
“Among those who were about her” was one witness 
well equipped to silence all tongues, abolish all 
doubts, set our minds at rest; one witness, not 
called, and not callable, whose evidence, if we could 
but get it, would outweigh the oaths of whole bat¬ 
talions of hostile Hoggs and nameless surgeons—the 
baby. I wish we had the baby’s testimony; and yet 
if we had it it would not do us any good—a furtive 
conjecture, a sly insinuation, a pious “if” or two, 
would be smuggled in, here and there, with a solemn 

3 1 







MARK TWAIN 


air of judicial investigation, and its positiveness 
would wilt into dubiety. 

The biographer says of Harriet, ‘‘If words of 
tender affection and motherly pride proved the 
reality of love, then undoubtedly she loved her first¬ 
born child.” That is, if mere empty words can 
prove it, it stands proved—and in this way, with¬ 
out committing himself, he gives the reader a chance 
to infer that there isn’t any extant evidence but 
words, and that he doesn’t take much stock in them. 
How seldom he shows his hand! He is always lurk¬ 
ing behind a non-committal “if” or something of 
that kind; always gliding and dodging around, dis¬ 
tributing colorless poison here and there and every¬ 
where, but always leaving himself in a position to 
say that his language will be found innocuous if 
taken to pieces and examined. He clearly exhibits 
a steady and never-relaxing purpose to make Harriet 
the scapegoat for her husband’s first great sin—but 
it is in the general view that this is revealed, not in 
the details. His insidious literature is like blue 
water; you know what it is that makes it blue, but 
you cannot produce and verify any detail of the 
cloud of microscopic dust in it that does it. Your 
adversary can dip up a glassful and show you that 
it is pure white and you cannot deny it; and he can 
dip the lake dry, glass by glass, and show that 
every glassful is white, and prove it to any one’s 
eye—and yet that lake was blue and you can swear 
it. This book is blue—with slander in solution. 

Let the reader examine, for example, the para¬ 
graph of comment which immediately follows the 

33 







DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

letter containing Shelley’s self-exposure which we 
have been considering. This is it. One should in¬ 
spect the individual sentences as they go by, then 
pass them in procession and review the cake-walk as 
a whole: 

Shelley’s happiness in his home, as is evident from this 
pathetic letter, had been fatally stricken; it is evident, also, that 
he knew where duty lay; he felt that his part was to take up his 
burden, silently and sorrowfully, and to bear it henceforth with 
the quietness of despair. But we can perceive that he scarcely 
possessed the strength and fortitude needful for success in such 
an attempt. And clearly Shelley himself was aware how perilous 
it was to accept that respite of blissful ease which he enjoyed in 
the Boinville household: for gentle voices and dewy looks and 
words of sympathy could not fail to remind him of an ideal of 
tranquillity or of joy which could never be his, and which he 
must henceforth sternly exclude from his imagination. 

That paragraph commits the author m no way. 
Taken sentence by sentence it asserts nothing against 
anybody or in favor of anybody, pleads for nobody, 
accuses nobody. Taken detail by detail, it is as 
innocent as moonshine. And yet, taken as a whole, 
it is a design against the reader; its intent is to re¬ 
move the feeling which the letter must leave with 
him if let alone, and put a different one in its place 
—to remove a feeling justified by the letter and 
substitute one not justified by it. The letter itself 
gives you no uncertain picture—no lecturer is 
needed to stand by with a stick and point out its 
details and let on to explain what they mean. The 
picture is the very clear and remorsefully faithful 
picture of a fallen and fettered angel who is ashamed 
of himself; an angel who beats his soiled wings and 

33 







MARK TWAIN 


cries, who complains to the woman who enticed him 
that he could have borne his wayward lot, he could 
have stood by his duty if it had not been for her 
beguilements; an angel who rails at the “boundless 
ocean of abhorred society,” and rages at his poor 
judicious sister-in-law. If there is any dignity about 
this spectacle it will escape most people. 

Yet when the paragraph of comment is taken as a 
whole, the picture is full of dignity and pathos; we 
have before us a blameless and noble spirit stricken 
to the earth by malign powers, but not conquered; 
tempted, but grandly putting the temptation away; 
enmeshed by subtle coils, but sternly resolved to 
rend them and march forth victorious, at any peril 
of life or limb. Curtain—slow music. 

Was it the purpose of the paragraph to take the 
bad taste of Shelley’s letter out of the reader’s 
mouth? If that was not it, good ink was wasted; 
without that, it has no relevancy—the multiplica¬ 
tion table would have padded the space as rationally. 

We have inspected the six reasons which we are 
asked to believe drove a man of conspicuous pa¬ 
tience, honor, justice, fairness, kindliness, and iron 
firmness, resolution, and steadfastness, from the 
wife whom he loved and who loved him, to a refuge 
in the mephitic paradise of Bracknell. These are 
six infinitely little reasons; but there were six colos¬ 
sal ones, and these the counsel for the destruction of 
Harriet Shelley persists in not considering very 
important. 

Moreover, the colossal six preceded the little six, 
and had done the mischief before they were bom, 

34 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


Let us double-column the twelve; then we shall see 
at a glance that each little reason is in turn answered 
by a retorting reason of a size to overshadow it and 
make it insignificant: 


1. Harriet sets up carriage. 

2. Harriet stops studying. 

3. Harriet goes to bonnet-shop. 

4. Harriet takes a wet-nurse. 

5. Harriet has too much nerve. 

6. Detested sister-in-law. 


1. Cornelia Turner. 

2. Cornelia Turner. 

3. Cornelia Turner. 

4. Cornelia Turner. 

5. Cornelia Turner. 

6. Cornelia Turner. 


As soon as we comprehend that Cornelia Turner 
and the Italian lessons happened before the little six 
had been discovered to be grievances, we understand 
why Shelley’s happiness in his home had been 
wounded and bruised almost to death, and no one 
can persuade us into laying it on Harriet. Shelley 
and Cornelia are the responsible persons, and we 
cannot in honor and decency allow the cruelties 
which they practised upon the unoffending wife to 
be pushed aside in order to give us a chance to waste 
time and tears over six sentimental justifications of 
an offense which the six can’t justify, nor even re¬ 
spectably assist in justifying. 

Six? There were seven; but in charity to the 
biographer the seventh ought not to be exposed. 
Still, he hung it out himself, and not only hung it 
out, but thought it was a good point in Shelley’s 
favor. For two years Shelley found sympathy and 
intellectual food and all that at home; there was 
enough for spiritual and mental support, but not 
enough for luxury; and so, at the end of the con¬ 
tented two years, this latter detail justifies him in 


35 






MARK TWAIN 


going bag and baggage over to Cornelia Turner and 
supplying the rest of his need in the way of surplus 
sympathy and intellectual pie unlawfully. By the 
same reasoning a man in merely comfortable circum¬ 
stances may rob a bank without sin. 


It is 1814, it is the 16th of March, Shelley had 
written his letter, he has been in the Boinville 
paradise a month, his deserted wife is in her hus¬ 
bandless home. Mischief has been wrought. It is 
the biographer who concedes this. We greatly need 
some light on Harriet’s side of the case now; we 
need to know how she enjoyed the month, but there 
is no way to inform ourselves; there seems to be a 
strange absence of documents and letters and diaries 
on that side. Shelley kept a diary, the approaching 
Mary Godwin kept a diary, her father kept one, her 
half-sister by marriage, adoption, and the dispensa¬ 
tion of God kept one, and the entire tribe and all its 
friends wrote and received letters, and the letters 
were kept and are producible when this biography 
needs them; but there are only three or four scraps 
of Harriet’s writing, and no diary. Harriet wrote 
plenty of letters to her husband—nobody knows 
where they are, I suppose; she wrote plenty of 
letters to other people—apparently they have dis¬ 
appeared, too. Peacock says she wrote good letters, 
but apparently interested people had sagacity enough 
to mislay them in time. After all her industry she 
went down into her grave and lies silent there— 

36 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


silent, when she has so much need to speak. We 
can only wonder at this mystery, not account for it. 

No, there is no way of finding out what Harriet’s 
state of feeling was during the month that Shelley 
was disporting himself in the Bracknell paradise. 
We have to fall back upon conjecture, as our fabu¬ 
list does when he has nothing more substantial to 
work with. Then we easily conjecture that as the 
days dragged by Harriet’s heart grew heavier and 
heavier under its two burdens—shame and resent¬ 
ment; the shame of being pointed at and gossiped 
about as a deserted wife, and resentment against the 
woman who had beguiled her husband from her and 
now kept him in a disreputable captivity. Deserted 
wives—deserted whether for cause or without cause 
—find small charity among the virtuous and the dis¬ 
creet. We conjecture that one after another the 
neighbors ceased to call; that one after another 
they got to being “engaged” when Harriet called; 
that finally they one after the other cut her dead on 
the street; that after that she stayed in the house 
daytimes, and brooded over her sorrows, and night¬ 
times did the same, there being nothing else to do 
with the heavy hours and the silence and solitude 
and the dreary intervals which sleep should have 
charitably bridged, but didn’t. 

Yes, mischief had been wrought. The biographer 
arrives at this conclusion, and it is a most just one. 
Then, just as you begin to half hope he is going to 
discover the cause of it and launch hot bolts of 
wrath at the guilty manufacturers of it, you have to 
turn away disappointed. You are disappointed, and 

37 





/ 


MARK TWAIN 

you sigh. This is what he says—the italics are 
mine: 

However the mischief may have been wrought— and at this 
day no one can wish to heap blame on any buried head — 

So it is poor Harriet, after all. Stern justice must 
take its course—justice tempered with delicacy, jus¬ 
tice tempered with compassion, justice that pities 
a forlorn dead girl and refuses to strike her. Ex¬ 
cept in the back. Will not be ignoble and say 
the harsh thing, but only insinuate it. Stern justice 
knows about the carriage and the wet-nurse and the 
bonnet-shop and the other dark things that caused 
this sad mischief, and may not, must not blink them; 
so it delivers judgment where judgment belongs, but 
softens the blow by not seeming to deliver judgment 
at all. To resume—the italics are mine: 

However the mischief may have been wrought—and at this 
day no one can wish to heap blame on any buried head— it is 
certain that some cause or causes of deep division between Shelley and 
his wife were in operation during the early part of the year 1814. 

This shows penetration. No deduction could be 
more accurate than this. There were indeed some 
causes of deep division. But next comes another 
disappointing sentence: 

To guess at the precise nature of these causes, in the absence 
of definite statement, were useless. 

Why, he has already been guessing at them for 
several pages, and we have been trying to outguess 
him, and now all of a sudden he is tired of it and 
won’t play any more. It is not quite fair to us. 

33 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

However, he will get over this by and by, when 
Shelley commits his next indiscretion and has to be 
guessed out of it at Harriet’s expense. 

“We may rest content with Shelley’s own words” 
—in a Chancery paper drawn up by him three years 
later. They were these: “Delicacy forbids me to 
say more than that we were disunited by incurable 
dissensions.” 

As for me, I do not quite see why we should rest 
content with anything of the sort. It is not a very 
definite statement. It does not necessarily mean 
anything more than that he did not wish to go into 
the tedious details of those family quarrels. Deli¬ 
cacy could quite properly excuse him from saying, 
“I was in love with Cornelia all that time; my wife 
kept crying and worrying about it and upbraiding 
me and begging me to cut myself free from a connec¬ 
tion which was wronging her and disgracing us 
both; and I being stung by these reproaches re¬ 
torted with fierce and bitter speeches—for it is my 
nature to do that when I am stirred, especially if 
the target of them is a person whom I had greatly 
loved and respected before, as witness my various 
attitudes toward Miss Hitchener, the Gisbornes, Har¬ 
riet’s sister, and others—and finally I did not improve 
this state of things when I deserted my wife and spent a 
whole month with the woman who had infatuated me.” 

No, he could not go into those details, and we 
excuse him; but, nevertheless, we do not rest con¬ 
tent with this bland proposition to puff away that 
whole long disreputable episode with a single mean¬ 
ingless remark of Shelley’s. 

4 39 




MARK TWAIN 


We do admit that “it is certain that some cause 
or causes of deep division were in operation.” We 
would admit it just the same if the grammar of the 
statement were as straight as a string, for we drift 
into pretty indifferent grammar ourselves when we are 
absorbed in historical work; but we have to decline 
to admit that we cannot guess those cause or causes. 

But guessing is not really necessary. There is 
evidence attainable—evidence from the batch dis¬ 
credited by the biographer and set out at the back 
door in his appendix-basket; and yet a court of law 
would think twice before throwing it out, whereas it 
would be a hardy person who would venture to offer 
in such a place a good part of the material which is 
placed before the readers of this book as “evi¬ 
dence,” and so treated by this daring biographer. 
Among some letters (in the appendix-basket) from 
Mrs. Godwin, detailing the Godwinian share in the 
Shelleyan events of 1814, she tells how Harriet 
Shelley came to her and her husband, agitated and 
weeping, to implore them to forbid Shelley the house, 
and prevent his seeing Mary Godwin. 

She related that last November he had fallen in love with 
Mrs. Turner and paid her such marked attentions Mr. Turner, 
the husband, had carried off his wife to Devonshire. 

The biographer finds a technical fault in this: 
“the Shelleys were in Edinburgh in November.” 
What of that? The woman is recalling a conversa¬ 
tion which is more than two months old; besides, 
she was probably more intent upon the central and 
important fact of it than upon its unimportant date. 

40 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

Harriet’s quoted statement has some sense in it; 
for that reason, if for no other, it ought to have been 
put in the body of the book. Still, that would not 
have answered; even the biographer’s enemy could 
not be cruel enough to ask him to let this real 
grievance, this compact and substantial and pictu¬ 
resque figure, this rawhead-and-bloody-bones, come 
striding in there among those pale shams, those 
rickety specters labeled Wet-Nurse, BoNNET-Snor, 
and so on—no, the father of all malice could not ask 
the biographer to expose his pathetic goblins to a 
competition like that. 

The fabulist finds fault with the statement because 
it has a technical error in it; and he does this at the 
moment that he is furnishing us an error himself, and 
of a graver sort. He says: 

If Turner carried off his wife to Devonshire he brought her 
back, and Shelley was staying with her and her mother on terms 
of cordial intimacy in March, 1814. 

We accept the “cordial intimacy ”—it was the very 
thing Harriet was complaining of—but there is 
nothing to show that it was Turner who brought his 
wife back. The statement is thrown in as if it were 
not only true, but was proof that Turner was not 
uneasy. Turner’s movements are proof of nothing. 
Nothing but a statement from Turner’s mouth would 
have any value here, and he made none. 

Six days after writing his letter Shelley and his 
wife were together again for a moment—to get re¬ 
married according to the rites of the English Church. 

Within three weeks the new husband and wife 

41 


4 







MARK TWAIN 


were apart again, and the former was back in his 
odorous paradise. This time it is the wife who does 
the deserting. She finds Cornelia too strong for her, 
probably. At any rate, she goes away with her 
baby and sister, and we have a playful fling at her 
from good Mrs. Boinville, the “mysterious spinner 
Maimuna”; she whose “face was as a damsel’s face, 
and yet her hair was gray”; she of whom the biog¬ 
rapher has said, “Shelley was indeed caught in an 
almost invisible thread spun around him, but uncon¬ 
sciously, by this subtle and benignant enchantress.” 
The subtle and benignant enchantress wuites to 
Hogg, April 18: “Shelley is again a widower; his 
beauteous half went to town on Thursday.” 

Then Shelley writes a poem—a chant of grief over 
the hard fate which obliges him now to leave his 
paradise and take up with his wife again. It seems 
to intimate that the paradise is cooling toward him; 
that he is warned off by acclamation; that he must 
not even venture to tempt with one last tear his 
friend Cornelia’s ungentle mood, for her eye is 
glazed and cold and dares not entreat her lover to 
stay: 

Exhibit E 

Pause not! the time is past! Every voice cries “ Away! ” 
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend’s ungentle mood; 

Thy lover’s eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: 
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. 

Back to the solitude of his now empty home, 
that is! 

Away! away! to thy sad and silent home; 

Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth. 


42 







DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

But he will have rest in the grave by and by. 
Until that time comes, the charms of Bracknell will 
remain in his memory, along with Mrs. Boinville’s 
voice and Cornelia Turner’s smile: 

Thou in the grave shalt rest—yet, till the phantoms flee 

Which that house and hearth and garden made dear to thee 
erewhile, 

Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free 

From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet 
smile. 

We cannot wonder that Harriet could not stand it. 
Any of us would have left. We would not even stay 
with a cat that was in this condition. Even the 
Boinvilles could not endure it; and so, as we have 
seen, they gave this one notice. 

Early in May, Shelley was in London. He did not yet 
despair of reconciliation with Harriet, nor had he ceased to 
love her. 

Shelley’s poems are a good deal of trouble to his 
biographer. They are constantly inserted as “evi¬ 
dence,” and they make much confusion. As soon 
as one of them has proved one thing, another one 
follows and proves quite a different thing. The 
poem just quoted shows that he was in love with 
Cornelia, but a month later he is in love with Harriet 
again, and there is a poem to prove it. 

In this piteous appeal Shelley declares that he has now no 
grief but one—the grief of having known and lost his wife’s love. 

Exhibit F 

Thy look of love has power to calm 
The stormiest passion of my soul. 

43 







MARK TWAIN 


But without doubt she had been reserving her 
looks of love a good part of the time for ten months, 
now—ever since he began to lavish his own on Cor¬ 
nelia Turner at the end of the previous July. He 
does really seem to have already forgotten Cornelia’s 
merits in one brief month, for he eulogizes Harriet 
in a way which rules all competition out: 

Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind, 

Amid a world of hate. 

He complains of her hardness, and begs her to 
make the concession of a “slight endurance’’—of 
his waywardness, perhaps—for the sake of “a 
fellow-being’s lasting weal.” But the main force of 
his appeal is in his closing stanza, and is strongly 
worded: 

0 trust for once no erring guide! 

Bid the remorseless feeling flee; 

’Tis malice, ’tis revenge, ’tis pride, 

’Tis anything but thee; 

O deign a nobler pride to prove, 

And pity if thou canst not love. 

This is in May—apparently toward the end of it. 
Harriet and Shelley were corresponding all the time. 
Harriet got the poem—a copy exists in her own 
handwriting; .she being the only gentle and kind 
person amid a world of hate, according to Shelley’s 
own testimony in the poem, we are permitted to 
think that the daily letters would presently have 
melted that kind and gentle heart and brought about 
the reconciliation, if there had been time—but there 
wasn’t; for in a very few days — in fact, before the 
8th of June—Shelley was in love with another woman. 

44 







DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 

And so—perhaps while Harriet was walking the 
floor nights, trying to get her poem by heart—her 
husband was doing a fresh one—for the other girl 
—Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin—with sentiments 
like these in it: 

Exhibit G 

To spend years thus and be rewarded, 

As thou, sweet love, requited me 
When none were near. 

. . . thy lips did meet 
Mine tremblingly; . . . 

Gentle and good and mild thou art, 

Nor can I live if thou appear 
Aught but thyself. . . . 

And so on. “Before the close of June it was known 
and felt by Mary and Shelley that each was inex¬ 
pressibly dear to the other.” Yes, Shelley had found 
this child of sixteen to his liking, and had wooed and 
won her in the graveyard. But that is nothing; 
it was better than wooing her in her nursery, at 
any rate, where it might have disturbed the other 
children. 

However, she was a child in years only. From the 
day that she set her masculine grip on Shelley he 
was to frisk no more. If she had occupied the only 
kind and gentle Harriet’s place in March it would 
have been a thrilling spectacle to see her invade the 
Boinville rookery and read the riot act. That holi¬ 
day of Shelley’s would have been of short duration, 
and Cornelia’s hair would have been as gray as her 
mother’s when the services were over. 

Hogg went to the Godwin residence in Skinner 

45 






MARK TWAIN 


Street with Shelley on that 8th of June. They passed 
through Godwin’s little debt-factory of a book-shop 
and went up-stairs hunting for the proprietor. No¬ 
body there. Shelley strode about the room im¬ 
patiently, making its crazy floor quake under him. 
Then a door “was partially and softly opened. A 
thrilling voice called, ‘Shelley!’ A thrilling voice 
answered, ‘Mary!’ And he darted out of the room 
like an arrow from the bow of the far-shooting King. 
A very young female, fair and fair-haired, pale, 
indeed, and with a piercing look, wearing a frock of 
tartan, an unusual dress in London at that time, had 
called him out of the room.” 

This is Mary Godwin, as described by Hogg. The 
thrill of the voices shows that the love of Shelley and 
Mary was already upward of a fortnight old; there¬ 
fore it had been born within the month of May— 
born while Harriet was still trying to get her poem 
by heart, we think. I must not be asked how I 
know so much about that thrill; it is my secret. 
The biographer and I have private ways of finding 
out things when it is necessary to find them out and 
the customary methods fail. 

Shelley left London that day, and was gone ten 
days. The biographer conjectures that he spent 
this interval with Harriet in Bath. It would be just 
like him. To the end of his days he liked to be in 
love with two women at once. He was more in love 
with Miss Hitchener when he married Harriet than 
he was with Harriet, and told the lady so with sim¬ 
ple and unostentatious candor. He was more in 
love with Cornelia than he was with Harriet in the 

46 


DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


end of 1813 and the beginning of 1814, yet he sup¬ 
plied both of them with love poems of an equal 
temperature meantime; he loved Mary and Harriet 
in June, and while getting ready to run off with the 
one, it is conjectured that he put in his odd time 
trying to get reconciled to the other; by and by, 
while still in love with Mary, he will make love to 
her half-sister by marriage, adoption, and the visita¬ 
tion of God, through the medium of clandestine 
letters, and she will answer with letters that are for 
no eye but his own. 

When Shelley encountered Mary Godwin he was 
looking around for another paradise. He had tastes 
of his own, and there were features about the God¬ 
win establishment that strongly recommended it. 
Godwin was an advanced thinker and an able writer. 
One of his romances is still read, but his philo¬ 
sophical works, once so esteemed, are out of vogue 
now; their authority was already declining when 
Shelley made his acquaintance—that is, it was de¬ 
clining with the public, but not with Shelley. They 
had been his moral and political Bible, and they 
were that yet. Shelley the infidel would himself 
have claimed to be less a work of God than a work 
of Godwin. Godwin’s philosophies had formed his 
mind and interwoven themselves into it and become 
a part of its texture; he regarded himself as God¬ 
win’s spiritual son. Godwin was not without self¬ 
appreciation; indeed, it may be conjectured that 
from his point of view the last syllable of his name 
was surplusage. He lived serene in his lofty world 
of philosophy, far above the mean interests that 

47 




MARK TWAIN 


absorbed smaller men, and only came down to the 
ground at intervals to pass the hat for alms to pay 
his debts with, and insult the man that relieved him. 
Several of his principles were out of the ordinary. 
For example, he was opposed to marriage. He was 
not aware that his preachings from this text were 
but theory and wind; he supposed he was in earnest 
in imploring people to live together without marry¬ 
ing, until Shelley furnished him a working model of 
his scheme and a practical example to analyze, by 
applying the principle in his own family; the matter 
took a different and surprising aspect then. The 
late Matthew Arnold said that the main defect in 
Shelley’s make-up was that he was destitute of the 
sense of humor. This episode must have escaped 
Mr. Arnold’s attention. 

But we have said enough about the head of the 
new paradise. Mrs. Godwin is described as being in 
several ways a terror; and even when her soul was in 
repose she wore green spectacles. But I suspect that 
her main unattractiveness was born of the fact that 
she wrote the letters that are out in the appendix- 
basket in the back yard—letters which are an out¬ 
rage and wholly untrustworthy, for they say some 
kind things about poor Harriet and tell some dis¬ 
agreeable truths about her husband; and these things 
make the fabulist grit his teeth a good deal. 

Next we have Fanny Godwin—a Godwin by 
courtesy only; she was Mrs. Godwin’s natural 
daughter by a former friend. She was a sweet and 
winning girl, but she presently wearied of the God¬ 
win paradise, and poisoned herself. 

48 




DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


Last in the list is Jane (or Claire, as she preferred 
to call herself) Clairmont, daughter of Mrs. Godwin 
by a former marriage. She was very young and 
pretty and accommodating, and always ready to do 
what she could to make things pleasant. After 
Shelley ran off with her part-sister Mary, she be¬ 
came the guest of the pair, and contributed a natural 
child to their nursery—Allegra. Lord Byron was 
the father. 

We have named the several members and advan¬ 
tages of the new paradise in Skinner Street, with its 
crazy book-shop underneath. Shelley was all right 
now, this was a better place than the other; more 
variety anyway, and more different kinds of fra¬ 
grance. One could turn out poetry here without any 
trouble at all. 

The way the new love-match came about was this: 
Shelley told Mary all his aggravations and sorrows 
and griefs, and about the wet-nurse and the bonnet- 
shop and the surgeon and the carriage, and the 
sister-in-law that blocked the London game, and 
about Cornelia and her mamma, and how they had 
turned him out of the house after making so much 
of him; and how he had deserted Harriet and then 
Harriet had deserted him, and how the reconciliation 
was working along and Harriet getting her poem by 
heart; and still he was not happy, and Mary pitied 
him, for she had had trouble herself. But I am not 
satisfied with this. It reads too much like statistics. 
It lacks smoothness and grace, and is too earthy and 
business-like. It has the sordid look of a trades- 
union procession out on strike. That is not the 

49 




MARK TWAIN 


right form for it. The book does it better; we will 
fall back on the book and have a cake-walk: 

It was easy to divine that some restless grief possessed him; 
Mary herself was not unlearned in the lore of pain. His generous 
zeal in her father’s behalf, his spiritual sonship to Godwin, his 
reverence for her mother’s memory, were guarantees with Mary 
of his excellence. 1 The new friends could not lack subjects of 
discourse, and underneath their words about Mary’s mother, and 
“Political Justice,” and “Rights of Woman,” were two young 
hearts, each feeling toward the other, each perhaps unaware, 
trembling in the direction of the other. The desire to assuage 
the suffering of one whose happiness has grown precious to us 
may become a hunger of the spirit as keen as any other, and this 
hunger now possessed Mary’s heart; when her eyes rested unseen 
on Shelley, it was with a look full of the ardor of a “soothing 
pity.” 

Yes, that is better and has more composure. That 
is just the way it happened. He told her about the 
wet-nurse, she told him about political justice; he 
told her about the deadly sister-in-law, she told him 
about her mother; he told her about the bonnet- 
shop, she murmured back about the rights of woman; 
then he assuaged her, then she assuaged him; then 
he assuaged her some more, next she assuaged him 
some more; then they both assuaged one another 
simultaneously; and so they went on by the hour 
assuaging and assuaging and assuaging, until at last 
what was the result? They were in love. It will 
happen so every time. 

He had married a woman who, as he now persuaded himself, 
had never truly loved him, who loved only his fortune and his 
rank, and who proved her selfishness by deserting him in his 
misery. 

1 What she was after was guarantees of his excellence. That he 
Stood ready to desert his wife and child was one of them, apparently. 

5° 


DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


I think that that is not quite fair to Harriet. We 
have no certainty that she knew Cornelia had turned 
him out of the house. He went back to Cornelia, 
and Harriet may have supposed that he was as happy 
with her as ever. Still, it was judicious to begin to 
lay on the whitewash, for Shelley is going to need 
many a coat of it now, and the sooner the reader 
becomes used to the intrusion of the brush the 
sooner he will get reconciled to it and stop fretting 
about it. 

After Shelley’s (conjectured) visit to Harriet at 
Bath—8th of June to 18th—“it seems to have been 
arranged that Shelley should henceforth join the 
Skinner Street household each day at dinner.” 

Nothing could be handier than this; things will 
swim along now. 

Although now Shelley was coming to believe that his wedded 
union with Harriet was a thing of the past, he had not ceased 
to regard her with affectionate consideration; he wrote to her 
frequently, and kept her informed of his whereabouts. 

We must not get impatient over these curious 
inharmoniousnesses and irreconcilabilities in Shel¬ 
ley’s character. You can see by the biographer’s 
attitude toward them that there is nothing objec¬ 
tionable about them. Shelley was doing his best to 
make two adoring young creatures happy: he was 
regarding the one with affectionate consideration by 
mail, and he was assuaging the other one at home. 

Unhappy Harriet, residing at Bath, had perhaps never 
desired that the breach between herself and her husband should 
be irreparable and complete. 

Si 


MARK TWAIN 


I find no fault with that sentence except that the 
“perhaps” is not strictly warranted. It should 
have been left out. In support—or shall we say 
extenuation?—of this opinion I submit that there 
is not sufficient evidence to warrant the uncertainty 
which it implies. The only “evidence” offered 
that Harriet was hard and proud and standing out 
against a reconciliation is a poem—the poem in 
which Shelley beseeches her to “bid the remorse¬ 
less feeling flee” and “pity” if she “cannot love.” 
We have just that as “evidence,” and out of its 
meager materials the biographer builds a cobhouse 
of conjectures as big as the Coliseum; conjectures 
which convince him, the prosecuting attorney, but 
ought to fall far short of convincing any fair-minded 
jury. 

Shelley’s love poems may be very good evidence, 
but we know well that they are “good for this day 
and train only.” We are able to believe that they 
spoke the truth for that one day, but we know by 
experience that they could not be depended on to 
speak it the next. The very supplication for a re¬ 
warming of Harriet’s chilled love was followed so 
suddenly by the poet’s plunge into an adoring pas¬ 
sion for Mary Godwin that if it had been a check it 
would have lost its value before a lazy person could 
have gotten to the bank with it. 

Hardness, stubbornness, pride, vindictiveness— 
these may sometimes reside in a young wife and 
mother of nineteen, but they are not charged against 
Harriet Shelley outside of that poem, and one has 
no right to insert them into her character on such 

52 


DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


shadowy ‘'evidence” as that. Peacock knew Har¬ 
riet well, and she has a flexible and persuadable 
look, as painted by him: 

Her manners were good, and her whole aspect and demeanor 
such manifest emanations of pure and truthful nature that to 
be once in her company was to know her thoroughly. She was 
fond of her husband, and accommodated herself in every way 
to his tastes. If they mixed in society, she adorned it; if they 
lived in retirement, she was satisfied; if they traveled, she 
enjoyed the change of scene. 

* 

“Perhaps” she had never desired that the breach 
should be irreparable and complete. The truth is, 
we do not even know that there was any breach at 
all at this time. We know that the husband and 
wife went before the altar and took a new oath on 
the 24th of March to love and cherish each other 
until death—and this may be regarded as a sort of 
reconciliation itself, and a wiping out of the old 
grudges. Then Harriet went away, and the sister- 
in-law removed herself from her society. That was 
in April. Shelley wrote his “appeal” in May, 
but the corresponding went right along afterward. 
We have a right to doubt that the subject of it was 
a “reconciliation,” or that Harriet had any suspi¬ 
cion that she needed to be reconciled and that her 
husband was trying to persuade her to it—as the 
biographer has sought to make us believe, with his 
Coliseum of conjectures built out of a waste-basket 
of poetry. For we have “evidence” now—not 
poetry and conjecture. When Shelley had been 
dining daily in the Skinner Street paradise fifteen 
days and continuing the love-match which was 

53 


MARK TWAIN 


already a fortnight old twenty-five days earlier, he 
forgot to write Harriet; forgot it the next day and 
the next. During four days Harriet got no letter 
from him. Then her fright and anxiety rose to 
expression-heat, and she wrote a letter to Shelley’s 
publisher which seems to reveal to us that Shelley’s 
letters to her had been the customary affectionate 
letters of husband to wife, and had carried no ap¬ 
peals for reconciliation and had not needed to: 

Bath (postmark July 7, 1814). 

My dear Sir, —You will greatly oblige me by giving the 
inclosed to Mr. Shelley. I would not trouble you, but it is 
now four days since I have heard from him, which to me is an 
age. Will you write by return of post and tell me what has 
become of him? as I always fancy something dreadful has hap¬ 
pened if I do not hear from him. If you tell me that he is well 
I shall not come to London, but if I do not hear from you or 
him I shall certainly come, as I cannot endure this dreadful 
state of suspense. You are his friend and you can feel for me. 

I remain yours truly, 

H. S. 

Even without Peacock’s testimony that “her whole 
aspect and demeanor were manifest emanations of a 
pure and truthful nature,” we should hold this to 
be a truthful letter, a sincere letter, a loving letter; 
it bears those marks; I think it is also the letter of 
a person accustomed to receiving letters from her 
husband frequently, and that they have been of a 
welcome and satisfactory sort, too, this long time 
back— ever since the solemn remarriage and recon¬ 
ciliation at the altar most likely. 

The biographer follows Harriet’s letter with a 
conjecture. He conjectures that she “would now 

54. 



DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


gladly have retraced her steps.” Which means that 
it is proven that she had steps to retrace—proven 
by the poem. Well, if the poem is better evidence 
than the letter, we must let it stand at that. 

Then the biographer attacks Harriet Shelley’s 
honor—by authority of random and unverified gos¬ 
sip scavengered from a group of people whose very 
names make a person shudder: Mary Godwin, mis¬ 
tress of Shelley; her part-sister, discarded mistress 
of Lord Byron; Godwin, the philosophical tramp, 
who gathers his share of it from a shadow—that is 
to say, from a person whom he shirks out of naming. 
Yet the biographer dignifies this sorry rubbish with 
the name of “evidence.” 

Nothing remotely resembling a distinct charge 
from a named person professing to know is offered 
among this precious “evidence.” 

1. “ Shelley believed ’ ’ so and so. 

2. Byron’s discarded mistress says that Shelley 
told Mary Godwin so and so, and Mary told her . 

3. “Shelley said” so and so — and later “admit¬ 
ted over and over again that he had been in 
error.” 

4. The unspeakable Godwin “wrote to Mr. Bax¬ 
ter” that he knew so and so “from unquestionable 
authority”—name not furnished. 

How any man in his right mind could bring him¬ 
self to defile the grave of a shamefully abused and 
defenseless girl with these baseless fabrications, this 
manufactured filth, is inconceivable. How any man, 
in his right mind or out of it, could sit down and 
coldly try to persuade anybody to believe it, or 

55 


5 



MARK TWAIN 


listen patiently to it, or, indeed, do anything but 
scoff at it and deride it, is astonishing. 

The charge insinuated by these odious slanders is 
one of the most difficult of all offenses to prove; it 
is also one which no man has a right to mention 
even in a whisper about any woman, living or dead, 
unless he knows it to be true, and not even then 
unless he can also prove it to be true. There is no 
justification for the abomination of putting this stuff 
in the book. 

Against Harriet Shelley’s good name there is not 
one scrap of tarnishing evidence, and not even a 
scrap of evil gossip, that comes from a source that 
entitles it to a hearing. 

On the credit side of the account we have strong 
opinions from the people who knew her best. Pea¬ 
cock says: 

I feel it due to the memory of Harriet to state my most 
decided conviction that her conduct as a wife was as pure, as 
true, as absolutely faultless, as that of any who for such conduct 
are held most in honor. 

Thornton Hunt, who had picked and published 
slight flaws in Harriet’s character, says, as regards 
this alleged large one: 

There is not a trace of evidence or a whisper of scandal 
against her before her voluntary departure from Shelley. 

Trelawney says: 

I was assured by the evidence of the few friends who knew 
both Shelley and his wife—Hookham, Hogg, Peacock, and one 
of the Godwins—that Harriet was perfectly innocent of all 
offense. 


56 






DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


What excuse was there for raking up a parcel of 
foul rumors from malicious and discredited sources 
and flinging them at this dead girl’s head? Her 
very defenselessness should have been her protec¬ 
tion. The fact that all letters to her or about her, 
with almost every scrap of her own writing, had 
been diligently mislaid, leaving her case destitute of 
a voice, while every pen-stroke which could help 
her husband’s side had been as diligently preserved, 
should have excused her from being brought to 
trial. Her witnesses have all disappeared, yet we 
see her summoned in her grave-clothes to plead for 
the life of her character, without the help of an ad¬ 
vocate, before a disqualified judge and a packed 
jury. 

Harriet Shelley wrote her distressed letter on the 
7 th of July. On the 28th her husband ran away 
with Mary Godwin and her part-sister Claire to the 
Continent. He deserted his wife when her confine¬ 
ment was approaching. She bore him a child at the 
end of November, his mistress bore him another one 
something over two months later. The truants were 
back in London before either of these events occurred. 

On one occasion, presently, Shelley was so pressed 
for money to support his mistress with that he went 
to his wife and got some money of his that was in 
her hands—twenty pounds. Yet the mistress was 
not moved to gratitude; for later, when the wife 
was troubled to meet her engagements, the mistress 
makes this entry in her diary: 

Harriet sends her creditors here; nasty woman. Now we 
shall have to change our lodgings. 

5 57 



MARK TWAIN 


The deserted wife bore the bitterness and obloquy 
of her situation two years and a quarter; then she 
gave up, and drowned herself. A month afterward 
the body was found in the water. Three weeks 
later Shelley married his mistress. 

I must here be allowed to italicize a remark of the 
biographer’s concerning Harriet Shelley: 

That no act of Shelley’s during the two years which immediately 
preceded her death tended to cause the rash act which brought her 
life to its close seems certain. 

Yet her husband had deserted her and her chil¬ 
dren, and was living with a concubine all that time! 
Why should a person attempt to write biography 
when the simplest facts have no meaning to him? 
This book is littered with as crass stupidities as that 
one—deductions by the page which bear no dis¬ 
coverable kinship to their premises. 

The biographer throws off that extraordinary re¬ 
mark without any perceptible disturbance to his 
serenity; for he follows it with a sentimental justi¬ 
fication of Shelley’s conduct which has not a pang of 
conscience in it, but is silky and smooth and undu¬ 
lating and pious—a cake-walk with all the colored 
brethren at their best. There may be people who 
can read that page and keep their temper, but it is 
doubtful. 

Shelley’s life has the one indelible blot upon it, 
but is otherwise worshipfully noble and beautiful. 
It even stands out indestructibly gracious and lovely 
from the ruck of these disastrous pages, in spite of 
the fact that they expose and establish his responsi- i 

58 





DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY 


bility for his forsaken wife’s pitiful fate—a re¬ 
sponsibility which he himself tacitly admits in a 
letter to Eliza Westbrook, wherein he refers to his 
taking up with Mary Godwin as an act which Eliza 

“might excusably regard as the cause of her sister’s 
>> 


rum. 


FENIMORE COOPER’S LITERARY 

OFFENSES 


The Pathfinder and The Deer slayer stand at the head of 
Cooper’s novels as artistic creations. There are others of his 
works which contain parts as perfect as are to be found in these, 
and scenes even more thrilling. Not one can be compared with 
either of them as a finished whole. 

The defects in both of these tales are comparatively slight. 
They were pure works of art.— Prof. Lounshury. 

The five tales reveal an extraordinary fullness of invention. 

. . . One of the very greatest characters in fiction, Natty 
Bumppo. . . . 

The craft of the woodsman, the tricks of the trapper, all the 
delicate art of the forest, were familiar to Cooper from his youth 
up.— Prof. Brander Matthews. 

Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction 
yet produced by America.— Wilkie Collins. 

I T seems to me that it was far from right for the 
Professor of English Literature in Yale, the Pro¬ 
fessor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie 
Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper’s literature 
without having read some of it. It would have been 
much more decorous to keep silent and let persons 
talk who have read Cooper. 

Cooper’s art has some defects. In one place in 
Deerslayer, and in the restricted space of two-thirds 
of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against lit¬ 
erary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record. 

60 


COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in 
the domain of romantic fiction—some say twenty- 
two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of 
[ them. These eighteen require: 

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and 
arrive somewhere. But the Deerslayer tale accom¬ 
plishes nothing and arrives in the air. 

2. They require that the episodes of a tale shall 
be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to 
develop it. But as the Deerslayer tale is not a tale, 
and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the 
episodes have no rightful place in the work, since 
there was nothing for them to develop. 

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall 
be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that 
always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses 
from the others. But this detail has often been 
overlooked in the Deerslayer tale. 

4. They require that the personages in a tale, both 
dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for 
being there. But this detail also has been over¬ 
looked in the Deerslayer tale. 

5. They require that when the personages of a tale 
deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like hu¬ 
man talk, and be talk such as human beings would 
be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have 
a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, 
and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neigh¬ 
borhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting 
to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop 
when the people cannot think of anything more to 
say. But this requirement has been ignored from 

61 



MARK TWAIN 

the beginning of the Deerslayer tale to the end 
of it. 

6. They require that when the author describes 
the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct 
and conversation of that personage shall justify said 
description. But this law gets little or no attention 
in the Deerslayer tale, as Natty Bumppo’s case will 
amply prove. 

7. They require that when a personage talks like 
an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, 
seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning 
of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel 
in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and 
danced upon in the Deerslayer tale. 

8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be 
played upon the reader as “the craft of the woods¬ 
man, the delicate art of the forest,” by either the 
author or the people in the tale. But this rule is 
persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale. 

9. They require that the personages of a tale shall 
confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles 
alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must 
so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible 
and reasonable. But these rules are not respected 
in the Deerslayer tale. 

10. They require that the author shall make the 
reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his 
tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the 
reader love the good people in the tale and hate the 
bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dis¬ 
likes the good people in it, is indifferent to the oth¬ 
ers, and wishes they would all get drowned together. 

62 



COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

11. They require that the characters in a tale 
shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell 
beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. 
But in the Deerslayer tale this rule is vacated. 

In addition to these large rules there are some 
little ones. These require that the author shall 

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely 
come near it. 

13. Use the right word, not its second cousin. 

14. Eschew surplusage. 

15. Not omit necessary details. 

16. Avoid slovenliness of form. 

17. Use good grammar. 

18. Employ a simple and straightforward style. 

Even these seven are coldly and persistently vio¬ 
lated in the Deerslayer tale. 

Cooper’s gift in the way of invention was not a 
rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to 
work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed 
he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little 
box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning 
devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woods¬ 
men to deceive and circumvent each other with, and 
he was never so happy as when he was working 
these innocent things and seeing them go. A 
favorite one was to make a moccasined person 
tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and 
thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels 
and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. 
Another stage-property that he pulled out of his 
box pretty frequently was his broken twig. He 
prized his broken twig above all the rest of his 

63 




MARK TWAIN 


effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful 
chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn’t 
step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites 
for two hundred yards around. Every time a 
Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is 
worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a 
dry twig. There may be a hundred handier things 
to step on, but that wouldn’t satisfy Cooper. 
Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry 
twig; and if he can’t do it, go and borrow one. 
In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have 
been called the Broken Twig Series. 

I am sorry there is not room to put in a few 
dozen instances of the delicate art of the forest, as 
practised by Natty Bumppo and some of the other 
Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two 
or three samples. Cooper was a sailor—a naval 
officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving 
toward a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a par¬ 
ticular spot by her skipper because he knows of an 
undertow there which will hold her back against the 
gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or 
sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn’t that neat? For 
several years Cooper was daily in the society of 
artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a 
cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself 
or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred 
feet or so—and so on, till finally it gets tired and 
rolls. Now in one place he loses some “females” 
—as he always calls women—in the edge of a 
wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to 
give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art 

64 



COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 


of the forest before the reader. These mislaid peo¬ 
ple are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannon- 
blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into 
the wood and stops at their feet. To the females 
this suggests nothing. The case is very different 
with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never 
know peace again if he doesn’t strike out promptly 
and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the 
plain through the dense fog and find the fort. Isn’t 
it a daisy? If Cooper had any real knowledge of 
Nature’s ways of doing things, he fyad a most deli¬ 
cate art in concealing the fact. For instance: one 
of his acute Indian experts, Chingachgook (pro¬ 
nounced Chicago, I think), has lost the trail of a 
person he is tracking through the forest. Appar¬ 
ently that trail is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor 
I could ever have guessed out the way to find it. It 
was very different with Chicago. Chicago was not 
stumped for long. He turned a running stream out 
of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, 
were that person’s moccasin tracks. The current 
did not wash them away, as it would have done in 
all other like cases—no, even the eternal laws of 
Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put 
up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader. 

We must be a little wary when Brander Matthews 
tell us that Cooper’s books “reveal an extraordi¬ 
nary fullness of invention.” As a rule, I am quite 
willing to accept Brander Matthews’s literary judg¬ 
ments and applaud his lucid and graceful phrasing 
of them; but that particular statement needs to be 
taken with a few tons of salt. Bless your heart, 

65 


MARK TWAIN 


Cooper hadn’t any more invention than a horse; 
and I don’t mean a high-class horse, either; I mean 
a clothes-horse. It would be very difficult to find a 
really clever “situation” in Cooper’s books, and 
still more difficult to find one of any kind which he 
has failed to render absurd by his handling of it. 
Look at the episodes of “the caves”; and at the 
celebrated scuffle between Maqua and those others 
on the table-land a few days later; and at Hurry 
Harry’s queer water-transit from the castle to the 
ark; and at Deerslayer’s half-hour with his first 
corpse; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry 
and Deerslayer later; and at—but choose for your¬ 
self; you can’t go amiss. 

If Cooper had been an observer his inventive 
faculty would have worked better; not more interest¬ 
ingly, but more rationally, more plausibly. Cooper’s 
proudest creations in the way of “situations” suffer 
noticeably from the absence of the observer’s pro¬ 
tecting gift. Cooper’s eye was splendidly inaccurate. 
Cooper seldom saw anything correctly. He saw 
nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly. Of 
course a man who cannot see the commonest little 
every-day matters accurately is working at a disad¬ 
vantage when he is constructing a “situation.” In 
the Deerslayer tale Cooper has a stream which is 
fifty feet wide where it flows out of a lake; it pres¬ 
ently narrows to twenty as it meanders along for no 
given reason, and yet when a stream acts like that 
it ought to be required to explain itself. Fourteen 
pages later the width of the brook’s outlet from the 
lake has suddenly shrunk thirty feet, and become 

66 





COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

“the narrowest part of the stream.” This shrinkage 
is not accounted for. The stream has bends in it, 
a sure indication that it has alluvial banks and cuts 
them; yet these bends are only thirty and fifty feet 
long. If Cooper had been a nice and punctilious ob¬ 
server he would have noticed that the bends were 
oftener nine hundred feet long than short of it. 

Cooper made the exit of that /stream fifty feet 
wide, in the first place, for no particular reason; in 
the second place, he narrowed it to less than twenty 
to accommodate some Indians. He bends a “sap¬ 
ling” to the form of an arch over this narrow passage, 
and conceals six Indians in its foliage. They are 
“laying” for a settler’s scow or ark which is coming 
up the stream on its way to the lake; it is being 
hauled against the stiff current by a rope whose 
stationary end is anchored in the lake; its rate of 
progress cannot be more than a mile an hour. 
Cooper describes the ark, but pretty obscurely. In 
the matter of dimensions “it was little more than a 
modem canal-boat.” Let us guess, then, that it 
was about one hundred and forty feet long. It was 
of “greater breadth than common.” Let us guess, 
then, that it was about sixteen feet wide. This 
leviathan had been prowling down bends which were 
but a third as long as itself, and scraping between 
banks where it had only two feet of space to spare 
on each side. We cannot too much admire this mir¬ 
acle. A low-roofed log dwelling occupies “two- 
thirds of the ark’s length”—a dwelling ninety feet 
long and sixteen feet wide, let us say—a kind of 
vestibule train. The dwelling has two rooms—each 

67 



MARK TWAIN 

forty-five feet long and sixteen feet wide, let us guess. 
One of them is the bedroom of the Hutter girls, 
Judith and Hetty; the other is the parlor in the day¬ 
time, at night it is papa’s bedchamber. The ark is 
arriving at the stream’s exit now, whose width has 
been reduced to less than twenty feet to accommo¬ 
date the Indians—say to eighteen. There is a foot 
to spare on each side of the boat. Did the Indians 
notice that there was going to be a tight squeeze 
there ? Did they notice that they could make money 
by climbing down out of that arched sapling and 
just stepping aboard when the ark scraped by? No, 
other Indians would have noticed these things, but 
Cooper’s Indians never notice anything. Cooper 
thinks they are marvelous creatures for noticing, but 
he was almost always in error about his Indians. 
There was seldom a sane one among them. 

The ark is one hundred and forty-feet long; the 
dwelling is ninety feet long. The idea of the Indians 
is to drop softly and secretly from the arched sap¬ 
ling to the dwelling as the ark creeps along under it 
at the rate of a mile an hour, and butcher the family. 

It will take the ark a minute and a half to pass under. 

It will take the ninety-foot dwelling a minute to 
pass under. Now, then, what did the six Indians 
do? It would take you thirty years to guess, and 
even then you would have to give it up, I believe. 
Therefore, I will tell you what the Indians did. 
Their chief, a person of quite extraordinary intellect 
for a Cooper Indian, warily watched the canal-boat 
as it squeezed along under him, and when he had 
got his calculations fined down to exactly the right ' 

68 |j 

| ! 





COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 


shade, as he judged, he let go and dropped. And 
missed the house! That is actually what he did. He 
missed the house, and landed in the stern of the scow. 
It was not much of a fall, yet it knocked him silly. 
He lay there unconscious. If the house had been 
ninety-seven feet long he would have made the trip. 
The fault was Cooper’s, not his. The error lay in the 
construction of the house. Cooper was no architect. 

There still remained in the roost five Indians. 
The boat has passed under and is now out of their 
reach. Let me explain what the five did—you 
would not be able to reason it out for yourself. 
No. i jumped for the boat, but fell in the water 
astern of it. Then No. 2 jumped for the boat, but 
fell in the water still farther astern of it. Then No. 
3 jumped for the boat, and fell a good way astern 
of it. Then No. 4 jumped for the boat, and fell in 
the water away astern. Then even No. 5 made a 
jump for the boat—for he was a Cooper Indian. 
In the matter of intellect, the difference between a 
Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of 
the cigar-shop is not spacious. The scow episode 
is really a sublime burst of invention; but it does 
not thrill, because the inaccuracy of the details 
throws a sort of air of fictitiousness and general 
improbability over it. This comes of Cooper’s in- 
- adequacy as an observer. 

The reader will find some examples of Cooper’s 
high talent for inaccurate observation in the account 
of the shooting-match in The Pathfinder. 

A common wrought nail was driven lightly into the target, 
its head having been first touched with paint. 

69 



MARK TWAIN 


The color of the paint is not stated—an impor¬ 
tant omission, but Cooper deals freely in impor¬ 
tant omissions. No, after all, it was not an important 
omission; for this nail-head is a hundred yards from 
the marksmen, and could not be seen by them at 
that distance, no matter what its color might be. 
How far can the best eyes see a common house-fly? 
A hundred yards? It is quite impossible. Very 
well; eyes that cannot see a house-fly that is a hun¬ 
dred yards away cannot see an ordinary nail-head at 
that distance, for the size of the two objects is the 
same. It takes a keen eye to see a fly or a nail- 
head at fifty yards—one hundred and fifty feet. 
Can the reader do it? 

The nail was lightly driven, its head painted, and 
game called. Then the Cooper miracles began. The 
bullet of the first marksman chipped an edge of the 
nail-head; the next man’s bullet drove the nail a 
little way into the target—and removed all the 
paint. Haven’t the miracles gone far enough now? 
Not to suit Cooper; for the purpose of this whole 
scheme is to show off his prodigy, Deerslayer- 
Hawkeye - Long - Rifle - Leatherstocking - Pathfinder- 
Bumppo before the ladies. 

“Be all ready to clench it, boys!” cried out Pathfinder, step¬ 
ping into his friend’s tracks the instant they were vacant. 
“ Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is 
gone, and what I can see I can hit at a hundred yards, though it 
were only a mosquito’s eye. Be ready to clench!” 

The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of 
the nail was buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened 
lead. 

There, you see, is a man who could hunt flies 

70 











COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

with a rifle, and command a ducal salary in a Wild 
West show to-day if we had him back with us. 

The recorded feat is certainly surprising just as it 
stands; but it is not surprising enough for Cooper. 
Cooper adds a touch. He has made Pathfinder do 
this miracle with another man’s rifle; and not only 
that, but Pathfinder did not have even the advantage 
of loading it himself. He had everything against 
him, and yet he made that impossible shot; and not 
only made it, but did it with absolute confidence, 
saying, “Be ready to clench.” Now a person like 
that would have undertaken that same feat with a 
brickbat, and with Cooper to help he would have 
achieved it, too. 

Pathfinder showed off handsomely that day before 
the ladies. His very first feat was a thing which no 
Wild West show can touch. He was standing with 
the group of marksmen, observing—a hundred 
yards from the target, mind; one Jasper raised his 
rifle and drove the center of the bull’s-eye. Then 
the Quartermaster fired. The target exhibited no 
result this time. There was a laugh. “It’s a dead 
miss,” said Major Lundie. Pathfinder waited an 
impressive moment or two; then said, in that calm, 
indifferent, know-it-all way of his, “No, Major, he 
has covered Jasper’s bullet, as will be seen if any 
one will take the trouble to examine the target.” 

Wasn’t it remarkable! How could he see that 
little pellet fly through the air and enter that distant 
bullet-hole? Yet that is what he did; for nothing 
is impossible to a Cooper person. Did any of those 
people have any deep-seated doubts about this thing ? 

n 


6 


MARK TWAIN 

No; for that would imply sanity, and these were all 
Cooper people. 

The respect for Pathfinder’s skill and for his quickness and 
accuracy of sight [the italics are mine] was so profound and 
general, that the instant he made this declaration the spectators 
began to distrust their own opinions, and a dozen rushed to the 
target in order to ascertain the fact. There, sure enough, it was 
found that the Quartermaster’s bullet had gone through the 
hole made by Jasper’s, and that, too, so accurately as to require 
a minute examination to be certain of the circumstance, which, 
however, was soon clearly established by discovering one bullet 
over the other in the stump against which the target was placed. 

They made a “minute” examination; but never 
mind, how could they know that there were two 
bullets in that hole without digging the latest one 
out? for neither probe nor eyesight could prove 
the presence of any more than one bullet. Did 
they dig? No; as we shall see. It is the Path¬ 
finder’s turn now; he steps out before the ladies, 
takes aim, and fires. 

But, alas! here is a disappointment; an incredible, 
an unimaginable disappointment—-for the target’s 
aspect is unchanged; there is nothing there but that 
same old bullet-hole! 

If one dared to hint at such a thing,” cried Major Duncan, 
I should say that the Pathfinder has also missed the target!” 

As nobody had missed it yet, the “also” was not 
necessary; but never mind about that, for the Path¬ 
finder is going to speak. 

“No, no, Major,” said he, confidently, “ that would be a risky 
declaration. I didn t load the piece, and can’t say what was in 

72 





COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

it; but if it was lead, you will find the bullet driving down those 
of the Quartermaster and Jasper, else is not my name Pathfinder.” 

A shout from the target announced the truth of this as¬ 
sertion. 

Is the miracle sufficient as it stands? Not for 
Cooper. The Pathfinder speaks again, as he “now 
slowly advances toward the stage occupied by the 
females”: 

“ That’s not all, boys, that’s not all; if you find the target 
touched at all, I’ll own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the 
wood, but you’ll find no wood cut by that last messenger.” 

The miracle is at last complete. He knew— 
doubtless saw —at the distance of a hundred yards 
•—that his bullet had passed into the hole without 
fraying the edges. There were now three bullets in 
that one hole—three bullets embedded procession- 
ally in the body of the stump back of the target. 
Everybody knew this—somehow or other—and yet 
nobody had dug any of them out to make sure. 
Cooper is not a close observer, but he is interesting. 
He is certainly always that, no matter what happens. 
And he is more interesting when he is not noticing 
what he is about than when he is. This is a con¬ 
siderable merit. 

The conversations in the Cooper books have a 
curious sound in our modern ears. To believe that 
such talk really ever came out of people’s mouths 
would be to believe that there was a time when time 
was of no value to a person who thought he had 
something to say; when it was the custom to spread 
a two-min.ute remark out to ten; when a man’s 
mouth was a rolling-mill, and busied itself all day 
0 73 




MARK TWAIN 


long in turning four-foot pigs of thought into thirty- 
foot bars of conversational railroad iron by attenua¬ 
tion; when subjects were seldom faithfully stuck 
to, but the talk wandered all around and arrived 
nowhere; when conversations consisted mainly of 
irrelevancies, with here and there a relevancy, a 
relevancy with an embarrassed look, as not being 
able to explain how it got there. 

Cooper was certainly not a master in the con¬ 
struction of dialogue. Inaccurate observation de¬ 
feated him here as it defeated him in so many other 
enterprises of his. He even failed to notice that the 
man who talks corrupt English six days in the week 
must and will talk it on the seventh, and can’t help 
himself. In the Deerslayer story he lets Deerslayer 
talk the showiest kind of book-talk sometimes, and 
at other times the basest of base dialects. For 
instance, when some one asks him if he has a sweet¬ 
heart, and if so, where she abides, this is his majestic 
answer: 

“ She’s in the forest—-hanging from the boughs of the trees, 
in a soft rain—in the dew on the open grass—the clouds that 
float about in the blue heavens—the birds that sing in the woods 
—the sweet springs where I slake my thirst—and in all the other 
glorious gifts that come from God’s Providence!” 

And he preceded that, a little before, with this: 

“It consams me as all things that touches a fri’nd consarns 
a fri’nd. ” 

And this is another of his remarks: 

“If I was Injin born, now, I might tell of this, or carry in the 
scalp and boast of the expl’ite afore the whole tribe; or if my 
inimy had only been a bear ”—[and so on]. 

74 


COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

We cannot imagine such a thing as a veteran 
Scotch Commander-in-Chief comporting himself in 
the field like a windy melodramatic actor, but Cooper 
could. On one occasion Alice and Cora were being 
chased by the French through a fog in the neighbor¬ 
hood of their father’s fort: 

“Point de quartier aux coquins I” cried an eager pursuer, who 
seemed to direct the operations of the enemy. 

“ Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 6oths!” suddenly 
exclaimed a voice above them; “ wait to see the enemy; fire low, 
and sweep the glacis.” 

“ Father! father ” exclaimed a piercing cry from oi^t the mist; 
“it is I! Alice! thy own Elsie! spare, 0! save your daughters!” 

“ Hold!” shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of 
parental agony, the sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling 
back in solemn echo. “ ’Tis she! God has restored me my 
children! Throw open the sally-port; to the field, 6oths, to the 
field! pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these 
dogs of France with your steel!” 

Cooper’s word-sense was singularly dull. When a 
person has a poor ear for music he will flat and 
sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps 
near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person 
has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary 
flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intend¬ 
ing to say, but you also perceive that he doesn’t 
say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. 
His ear was satisfied with the approximate word. I 
will furnish some circumstantial evidence in support 
of this charge. My instances are gathered from half 
a dozen pages of the tale called Deerslayer. He uses 
“verbal” for “oral”; “precision” for “facility”; 
“phenomena” for “marvels”; “necessary” for 

75 


MARK TWAIN 


‘ ‘ predetermined ”; “ unsophisticated ’ ’ for ‘ ‘ primi¬ 

tive”; “preparation” for‘‘expectancy”; “rebuked” 
for ‘ ‘ subdued ”; “ dependent on ” for “ resulting 

from”; “fact” for “condition”; “fact” for “con- 
j ecture ”; “ precaution ” for “ caution ”; “ explain 
for “determine”; “mortified” for “disappointed”; 

‘ ‘ meretricious ” for “ factitious ”; “ materially ’ ’ for 
‘ ‘ considerably ”; “ decreasing ” for “ deepening ’ ’; 

“increasing” for “disappearing”; “embedded” for 
“inclosed”; “treacherous” for “hostile”; “stood” 
for “stooped”; “softened” for “replaced”; “re- 
j oined ” *for “ remarked ”; “ situation ’ ’ for ‘ ‘ con¬ 

dition”; “different” for “differing”; “insensible” 
for “unsentient”; “brevity” for “celerity”; “dis¬ 
trusted” for “suspicious”; “mental imbecility” 
for “imbecility”; “eyes” for “sight”; “counter¬ 
acting” for “opposing”; “funeral obsequies” for 
“obsequies.” 

There have been daring people in the world who 
claimed that Cooper could write English, but they 
are all dead now—all dead but Lounsbury. I don’t 
remember that Lounsbury makes the claim in so 
many words, ‘still he makes it, for he says that 
Deer slayer is a “pure work of art.” Pure, in that 
connection, means faultless—faultless in all details — 
and language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only 
compared Cooper’s English with the English which 
he writes himself—but it is plain that he didn’t ; and 
so it is likely that he imagines until this day that 
Cooper’s is as clean and compact as his own. Now 
I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper 
wrote about the poorest English that exists in our 

76 



COOPER’S LITERARY OFFENSES 

language, and that the English of Deer slayer is the 
very worst that even Cooper ever wrote. 

I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that 
Deer slayer is not a work of art in any sense; it does 
seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that 
goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it 
seems to me that Deer slayer is just simply a literary 
delirium tremens. 

A work of art? It has no invention; it has no 
order, system, sequence, or result; it has no life¬ 
likeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its 
characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts 
and words they prove that they are not the sort of 
people the author claims that they are; its humor 
is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are 
—oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English 
a crime against the language. 

Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think 
we must all admit 




TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 


L AST spring I went out to Chicago to see the 
Fair, and although I did not see it my trip 
was not wholly lost—there were compensations. In 
New York I was introduced to a major in the regular 
army who said he was going to the Fair, and we 
agreed to go together. I had to go to Boston first, 
but that did not interfere; he said he would go 
along, and put in the time. He was a handsome 
man, and built like a gladiator. But his ways were 
gentle, and his speech was soft and persuasive. He 
was companionable, but exceedingly reposeful. Yes, 
and wholly destitute of the sense of humor. He 
was full of interest in everything that went on around 
him, but his serenity was indestructible; nothing 
disturbed him, nothing excited him. 

But before the day was done I found that deep 
down in him somewhere he had a passion, quiet as 
he was—a passion for reforming petty public abuses. 
He stood for citizenship—it was his hobby. His 
idea was that every citizen of the republic ought to 
consider himself an unofficial policeman, and keep 
unsalaried watch and ward over the laws and their 
execution. He thought that the only effective way 
of preserving and protecting public rights was for 
each citizen to do his share in preventing or pun- 


TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 


ishing such infringements of them as came under 
his personal notice. 

It was a good scheme, but I thought it would 
keep a body in trouble all the time; it seemed to 
me that one would be always trying to get offend¬ 
ing little officials discharged, and perhaps getting 
laughed at for all reward. But he said no, I had 
the wrong idea; that there was no occasion to get 
anybody discharged; that in fact you mustn't get 
anybody discharged; that that would itself be a 
failure; no, one must reform the man—reform him 
and make him useful where he was. 

“Must one report the offender and then beg his 
superior not to discharge him, but reprimand him 
and keep him?” 

“No, that is not the idea; you don’t report him 
at all, for then you risk his bread and butter. You 
can act as if you are going to report him—when 
nothing else will answer. But that’s an extreme 
case. That is a sort of force, and force is bad. 
Diplomacy is the effective thing. Now if a man has 
tact—if a man will exercise diplomacy—” 

For two minutes we had been standing at a tele¬ 
graph wicket, and during all this time the Major had 
been trying to get the attention of one of the young 
operators, but they were all busy skylarking. The 
Major spoke now, and asked one of them to take 
his telegram. He got for reply: 

“I reckon you can wait a minute, can’t you?” 
and the skylarking went on. 

The Major said yes, he was not in a hurry. Then 
he wrote another telegram: 

79 



MARK TWAIN 


President Western Union Tel. Co.: 

Come and dine with me this evening. I can tell you how 
business is conducted in one of your branches. 

Presently the young fellow who had spoken so 
pertly a little before reached out and took the tele¬ 
gram, and when he read it he lost color and began 
to apologize and explain. He said he would lose 
his place if this deadly telegram was sent, and he 
might never get another. If he could be let off this 
time he would give no cause of complaint again. 
The compromise was accepted. 

As we walked away, the Major said: 

“Now, you see, that was diplomacy—and you 
see how it worked. It wouldn’t do any good to 
bluster, the way people are always doing—that 
boy can always give you as good as you send, and 
you’ll come out defeated and ashamed of yourself 
pretty nearly always. But you see he stands no 
chance against diplomacy. Gentle words and diplo¬ 
macy—those are the tools to work with.” 

“Yes, I see; but everybody wouldn’t have had 
your opportunity. It isn’t everybody that is on 
those familiar terms with the president of the West¬ 
ern Union.” 

Oh, you misunderstand. I don’t know the presi¬ 
dent—I only used him diplomatically. It is for his 
good and for the public good. There’s no harm in it.” 

I said, with hesitation and diffidence: 

“But is it ever right or noble to tell a lie?” 

He took no note of the delicate self-righteous¬ 
ness of the question, but answered, with undisturbed 
gravity and simplicity: 


80 




TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 

“Yes, sometimes. Lies told to injure a person, 
and lies told to profit yourself are not justifiable, but 
lies told to help another person, and lies told in 
the public interest—oh, well, that is quite another 
matter. Anybody knows that. But never mind 
about the methods: you see the result. That youth 
is going to be useful now, and well behaved. He 
had a good face. He was worth saving. Why, he 
was worth saving on his mother’s account if not his 
own. Of course, he has a mother—sisters, too. 
Damn those people who are always forgetting that! 
Do you know, I’ve never fought a duel in my life— 
never once—and yet have been challenged, like 
other people. I could always see the other man’s 
unoffending women folks or his little children stand¬ 
ing between him and me. They hadn’t done any¬ 
thing—I couldn’t break their hearts, you know.’’ 

He corrected a good many little abuses in the 
course of the day, and always without friction— 
always with a fine and dainty “diplomacy” which 
left no sting behind; and he got such happiness and 
such contentment out of these performances that I 
was obliged to envy him his trade—and perhaps 
would have adopted it if I could have managed the 
necessary deflections from fact as confidently with 
my mouth as I believe I could with a pen, behind 
the shelter of print, after a little practice. 

Away late that night we were coming up-town in 
a horse-car when three boisterous roughs got aboard, 
and began to fling hilarious obscenities and pro¬ 
fanities right and left among the timid passengers, 
some of whom were women and children, Nobody 

81 





MARK TWAIN 


resisted or retorted; the conductor tiled soothing 
words and moral suasion, but the roughs only called 
him names and laughed at him. Very soon I saw 
that the Major realized that this was a matter which 
was in his line; evidently he was turning over his 
stock of diplomacy in his mind and getting ready. 
I felt that the first diplomatic remark he made in 
this place would bring down a landslide of ridicule 
upon him and maybe something worse; but before 
I could whisper to him and check him he had begun, 
and it was too late. He said, in a level and dispas¬ 
sionate tone: 

“Conductor, you must put these swine out. I 
will help you.” 

I was not looking for that. In a flash the three 
roughs plunged at him. But none of them arrived. 
He delivered three such blows as one could not ex¬ 
pect to encounter outside the prize-ring, and neither 
of the men had life enough left in him to get up from 
where he fell. The Major dragged them out and 
threw them off the car, and we got under way again. 

I was astonished; astonished to see a lamb act 
so; astonished at the strength displayed, and the 
clean and comprehensive result; astonished at the 
brisk and business-like style of the whole thing. 
The situation had a humorous side to it, considering 
how much I had been hearing about mild persuasion 
and gentle diplomacy all day from this pile-driver, 
and I would have liked to call his attention to that 
feature and do some sarcasms about it; but when I 
looked at him I saw that it would be of no use—his 
placid and contented face had no ray of humor ir 

v 82 



TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 

it; he would not have understood. When we left 
the car, I said: 

“That was a good stroke of diplomacy—three 
good strokes of diplomacy, in fact.” 

“ That f That wasn’t diplomacy. You are quite 
in the wrong. Diplomacy is a wholly different thing. 
One cannot apply it to that sort; they would not 
understand it. No, that was not diplomacy; it was 
force.” 

“Now that you mention it, I—yes, I think per¬ 
haps you are right.” 

“Right? Of course I am right. It was just force.” 

“I think, myself, it had the outside aspect of it. 
Do you often have to reform people in that way?” 

“Far from it. It hardly ever happens. Not 
oftener than once in half a year, at the outside./ 

“Those men will get well?” 

“Get well? Why, certainly they will. They are 
not in any danger. I know how to hit and where to 
hit. You noticed that I did not hit them under the 
jaw. That would have killed them.” 

I believed that. I remarked—rather wittily, as I 
thought—that he had been a lamb all day, but now 
had all of a sudden developed into a ram—batter¬ 
ing-ram; but with dulcet frankness and simplicity 
he said no, a battering-ram was quite a different 
thing and not in use now. This was maddening, 
and I came near bursting out and saying he had no 
more appreciation of wit than a jackass—in fact, I 
had it right on my tongue, but did not say it, know¬ 
ing there was no hurry and I could say it just as 
well some other time over the telephone. 

33 



MARK TWAIN 


We started to Boston the next afternoon. The 
smoking-compartment in the parlor-car was full, and 
we went into the regular smoker. Across the aisle 
in the front seat sat a meek, farmer-looking old man 
with a sickly pallor in his face, and he was holding 
the door open with his foot to get the air. Presently 
a big brakeman came rushing through, and when 
he got to the door he stopped, gave the farmer 
an ugly scowl, then wrenched the door to with such 
energy as to almost snatch the old man’s boot off. 
Then on he plunged about his business. Several 
passengers laughed, and the old gentleman looked 
pathetically shamed and grieved. 

After a little the conductor passed along, and the 
Major stopped him and asked him a question in his 
habitually courteous way: 

Conductor, where does one report the misconduct 
of a brakeman? Does one report to you?” 

“You can report him at New Haven if you want 
to. What has he been doing?” 

The Major told the story. The conductor seemed 
amused. He said, with just a touch of sarcasm in 
his bland tones: 

“As I understand you, the brakeman didn’t say 
anything.” 

“No, he didn’t say anything.” 

“But he scowled, you say.” 

“Yes.” 

“And snatched the door loose in a rough way.” 

“Yes.” 

“That’s the whole business, is it?” 

“Yes, that is the whole of it.” 

84 




TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 


The conductor smiled pleasantly, and said: 

“Well, if you want to report him, all right, but I 
don’t quite make out what it’s going to amount to. 
You’ll say—as I understand you—that the brake- 
man insulted this old gentleman. They’ll ask you 
what he said. You’ll say he didn’t say anything at 
all. I reckon they’ll say, how are you going to 
make out an insult when you acknowledge yourself 
that he didn’t say a word.” 

There was a murmur of applause at the conduc¬ 
tor’s compact reasoning, and it gave him pleasure—- 
you could see it in his face. But the Major was not 
disturbed. He said: 

“There—now you have touched upon a crying 
defect in the complaint system. The railway offi¬ 
cials—as the public think and as you also seem to 
think—are not aware that there are any kind of 
insults except spoken ones. So nobody goes to 
headquarters and reports insults of manner, insults 
of gesture, look, and so forth; and yet these are 
sometimes harder to bear than any words. They 
are bitter hard to bear because there is nothing 
tangible to take hold of; and the insulter can always 
say, if called before the railway officials, that he 
never dreamed of intending any offense. It seems to 
me that the officials ought to specially and urgently 
request the public to report unworded affronts and 
incivilities.” 

The conductor laughed, and said: 

“Well, that would be trimming it pretty fine, 
sure! 

“But not too fine, I think. I will report this 

85 






MARK TWAIN 


matter at New Haven, and I have an idea that I’ll 
be thanked for it.” 

The conductor’s face lost something of its com¬ 
placency; in fact, it settled to a quite sober cast as 
the owner of it moved away. I said: 

“You are not really going to bother with that 
trifle, are you?” 

‘ ‘ It isn’t a trifle. Such things ought always to be re¬ 
ported. It is a public duty, and no citizen has a right 
to shirk it. But I sha’n’t have to report this case.” 

“Why?” 

“It won’t be necessary. Diplomacy will do the 
business. You’ll see.” 

Presently the conductor came on his rounds again, 
and when he reached the Major he leaned over and 
said: 

“That’s all right. You needn’t report him. He’s 
responsible to me, and if he does it again I’ll give 
him a talking to.” 

The Major’s response was cordial: 

“Now that is what I like! You mustn’t think 
that I was moved by any vengeful spirit, for that 
wasn’t the case. It was duty—just a sense of duty, 
that was all. My brother-in-law is one of the 
directors of the road, and when he learns that you 
are going to reason with your brakeman the very next 
time he brutally insults an unoffending old man it 
will please him, you may be sure of that.” 

The conductor did not look as joyous as one might 
have thought he would, but on the contrary looked 
sickly and uncomfortable. He stood around a little; 
then said: 


36 



TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 


“I think something ought to be done to him 
now. I’ll discharge him.” 

“Discharge him? What good would that do? 
Don’t you think it would be better wisdom to teach 
him better ways and keep him?” 

“Well, there’s something in that. What would 
you suggest?” 

“He insulted the old gentleman in presence of all 
these people. How would it do to have him come 
and apologize in their presence?” 

“I’ll have him here right off. And I want to say 
this: If people would do as you’ve done, and re¬ 
port such things to me instead of keeping mum and 
going off and blackguarding the road, you’d see a 
different state of things pretty soon. I’m much 
obliged to you.” 

The brakeman came and apologized. After he 
was gone the Major said: 

“Now, you see how simple and easy that was. 
The ordinary citizen would have accomplished noth¬ 
ing—the brother-in-law of a director can accomplish 
anything he wants to.” 

‘ ‘ But are you really the brother-in-law of a director ?” 

“Always. Always when the public interests re¬ 
quire it. I have a brother-in-law on all the boards 
—everywhere. It saves me a world of trouble.” 

“It is a good wide relationship.” 

“Yes. I have over three hundred of them.” 

“Is the relationship never doubted by a con¬ 
ductor?” 

“I have never met with a case. It is the honest 
truth—I never have.” 

7 


87 



MARK TWAIN 


“Why didn’t you let him go ahead and discharge 
the brakeman, in spite of your favorite policy? You 
know he deserved it.” 

The Major answered with something which really 
had a sort of distant resemblance to impatience: 

“If you would stop and think a moment you 
wouldn’t ask such a question as that. Is a brake- 
man a dog, that nothing but dog’s methods will do 
for him? He is a man, and has a man’s fight for 
life. And he always has a sister, or a mother, or 
wife and children to support. Always—there are 
no exceptions. When you take his living away from 
him you take theirs away too—and what have they 
done to you? Nothing. And where is the profit in 
discharging an uncourteous brakeman and hiring 
another just like him? It’s unwisdom. Don’t you 
see that the rational thing to do is to reform the 
brakeman and keep him? Of course it is.” 

Then he quoted with admiration the conduct of a 
certain division superintendent of the Consolidated 
road, in a case where a switchman of two years’ 
experience was negligent once and threw a train off 
the track and killed several people. Citizens came 
in a passion to urge the man’s dismissal, but the 
superintendent said: 

“No, you are wrong. He has learned his lesson, \ 
he will throw no more trains off the track. He is 
twice as valuable as he was before. I shall keep 
him.” | 

We had only one more adventure on the trip. Be¬ 
tween Hartford and Springfield the train-boy came 
shouting in with an armful of literature and dropped 

88 





TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER' 


a sample into a slumbering gentleman’s lap, and the 
man woke up with a start. He was very angry, and 
he and a couple of friends discussed the outrage 
with much heat. They sent for the parlor-car con¬ 
ductor and described the matter, and were deter¬ 
mined to have the boy expelled from his situation. 
The three complainants were wealthy Holyoke mer¬ 
chants, and it was evident that the conductor stood 
in some awe of them. He tried to pacify them, 
and explained that the boy was not under his 
authority, but under that of one of the news com¬ 
panies; but he accomplished nothing. 

Then the Major volunteered some testimony for 
the defense. He said: 

“I saw it all. You gentlemen have not meant to 
exaggerate the circumstances, but still that is what 
you have done. The boy has done nothing more 
than all train-boys do. If you want to get his ways 
softened down and his manners reformed, I am with 
you and ready to help, but it isn’t fair to get him 
discharged without giving him a chance.” 

But they were angry, and would hear of no com¬ 
promise. They were well acquainted with the presi¬ 
dent of the Boston & Albany, they said, and would 
put everything aside next day and go up to Boston 
and fix that boy. 

The Major said he would be on hand too, and 
would do what he could to save the boy. One of 
the gentlemen looked him over, and said: 

‘‘Apparently it is going to be a matter of who 
can wield the most influence with the president, Do 
you know Mr. Bliss personally?” 

7 89 


MARK TWAIN 


The Major said, with composure: 

“Yes; he is my uncle.” 

The effect was satisfactory. There was an awk¬ 
ward silence for a minute or more; then the hedg¬ 
ing and the half-confessions of overhaste and ex¬ 
aggerated resentment began, and soon everything 
was smooth and friendly and sociable, and it was 
resolved to drop the matter and leave the boy’s 
bread-and-butter unmolested. 

It turned out as I had expected: the president 
of the road was not the Major’s uncle at all— 
except by adoption, and for this day and train 
only. 

We got into no episodes on the return journey. 
Probably it was because we took a night train and 
slept all the way. 

We left New York Saturday night by the Pennsyl¬ 
vania road. After breakfast the next morning we 
went into the parlor-car, but found it a dull place 
and dreary. There were but few people in it and 
nothing going on. Then we went into the little 
smoking-compartment of the same car and found 
three gentlemen in there. Two of them were grum¬ 
bling over one of the rules of the road—a rule which 
forbade card-playing on the trains on Sunday. They 
had started an innocent game of high-low-jack 
and been stopped. The Major was interested. He 
said to the third gentleman: 

“Did you object to the game?” 

“Not at all. I am a Yale professor and a relig¬ 
ious man, but my prejudices are not extensive.” 

Then the Major said to the others: 

90 





TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 

“You are at perfect liberty to resume your game, 
gentlemen; no one here objects.” 

One of them declined the risk, but the other one 
said he would like to begin again if the Major would 
join him. So they spread an overcoat over their 
knees and the game proceeded. Pretty soon the 
parlor-car conductor arrived, and said brusquely: 

“There, there, gentlemen, that won’t do. Put up 
the cards—it’s not allowed.” 

The Major was shuffling. He continued to shuffle, 
and said: 

“By whose order is it forbidden?” 

“It’s my order. I forbid it.” 

The dealing began. The Major asked: 

“Did you invent the idea?” 

“What idea?” 

“The idea of forbidding card-playing on Sunday.” 

“No—of course not.” 

“Who did?” 

“The company.” 

“Then it isn’t your order, after all, but the com¬ 
pany’s. Is that it?” 

“Yes. But you don’t stop playing; I have to re¬ 
quire you to stop playing immediately.” 

“Nothing is gained by hurry, and often much is 
lost. Who authorized the company to issue such an 
order?” 

“My dear sir, that is a matter of no consequence 
to me, and—” 

“But you forget that you are not the only person 
concerned. It may be a matter of consequence to 
me. It is indeed a matter of very great importance 



MARK TWAIN 


to me. I cannot violate a legal requirement of my 
country without dishonoring myself;-I cannot allow 
any man or corporation to hamper my liberties with 
illegal rules—a thing which railway companies are 
always trying to do — without dishonoring my 
citizenship. So I come back to that question: By 
whose authority has the company issued this order?” 

“I don’t know. That’s their affair.” 

‘ ‘ Mine, too. I doubt if the company has any right 
to issue such a rule. This road runs ihrough several 
states. Do you know what state we are in now, and 
what its laws are in matters of this kind?” 

“Its laws do not concern me, but the company’s 
orders do. It is my duty to stop this game, gentle¬ 
men, and it must be stopped.” 

“Possibly; but still there is no hurry. In hotels 
they post certain rules in the rooms, but they always 
quote passages from the state laws as authority for 
these requirements. I see nothing posted here of 
this sort. Please produce your authority and let us 
arrive at a decision, for you see yourself that you 
are marring the game.” 

“I have nothing of the kind, but I have my 
orders, and that is sufficient. They must be obeyed.” 

“Let us not jump to conclusions. It will be bet¬ 
ter all around to examine into the matter without 
heat or haste, and see just where we stand before 
either of us makes a mistake—for the curtailing of 
the liberties of a citizen of the United States is a 
much more serious matter than you and the railroads 
seem to think, and it cannot be done in my person 
until the curtailer proves his right to do so. Now—” 

92 



TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 


“My dear sir, will you put down those cards?” 

“All in good time, perhaps. It depends. You say 
this order must be obeyed. Must. It is a strong 
word. You see yourself how strong it is. A wise 
company would not arm you with so drastic an 
order as this, of course , without appointing a penalty 
for its infringement. Otherwise it runs the risk of 
being a dead letter and a thing to laugh at. What 
is the appointed penalty for an infringement of this 
law?” 

“Penalty? I never heard of any.” 

“Unquestionably you must be mistaken. Your 
company orders you to come here and rudely break 
up an innocent amusement, and furnishes you no 
way to enforce the order? Don’t you see that that 
is nonsense? What do you do when people refuse 
to obey this order? Do you take the cards away 
from them?” 

“No.” 

“Do you put the offender off at the next station?” 

“Well, no—of course we couldn’t if he had a 
ticket.” 

“Do you have him up before a court?” 

The conductor was silent and apparently troubled. 
The Major started a new deal, and said: 

“You see that you are helpless, and that the com¬ 
pany has placed you in a foolish position. You are 
furnished with an arrogant order, and you deliver 
it in a blustering way, and when you come to look 
into the matter you find you haven’t any way of 
enforcing obedience.” 

The conductor said, with chill dignity: 

93 




MARK TWAIN 


“Gentlemen, you have heard the order, and my 
duty is ended. As to obeying it or not, you will do 
as you think fit.” And he turned to leave. 

“But wait. The matter is not yet finished. I 
think you are mistaken about your duty being 
ended; but if it really is, I myself have a duty to 
perform yet.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Are you going to report my disobedience at 
headquarters in Pittsburg?” 

“No. What good would that do?” 

“You must report me, or I will report you.” 

‘ ‘ Report me for what ?” 

“For disobeying the company’s orders in not 
stopping this game. As a citizen it is my duty to 
help the railway companies keep their servants to 
their work.” 

“Are you in earnest?” 

“Yes, I am in earnest. I have nothing against 
you as a man, but I have this against you as an 
officer—that you have not carried out that order, 
and if you do not report me I must report you. 
And I will.” 

The conductor looked puzzled, and was thoughtful 
a moment; then he burst out with: 

“I seem to be getting myself into a scrape! It’s 
all a muddle; I can’t make head or tail of it; it’s 
never happened before; they always knocked under 
and never said a word, and so I never saw how 
ridiculous that stupid order with no penalty is. I 
don’t want to report anybody, and I don’t want to 
be reported—why, it might do me no end of harm! 

94 





TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 

Now do go on with the game—play the whole day 
if you want to—and don’t let’s have any more trou¬ 
ble about it!” 

“No, I only sat down here to establish this gen¬ 
tleman’s rights—he can have his place now. But 
before you go won’t you tell me what you think 
the company made this rule for? Can you imagine 
an excuse for it? I mean a rational one—an ex¬ 
cuse that is not on its face silly, and the invention of 
an idiot?” 

“Why, surely I can. The reason it was made is 
plain enough. It is to save the feelings of the other 
passengers—the religious ones among them, I mean. 
They would not like it, to have the Sabbath dese¬ 
crated by card-playing on the train.” 

“I just thought as much. They are willing to 
desecrate it themselves by traveling on Sunday, but 
they are not willing that other people—” 

“By gracious, you’ve hit it! I never thought of 
that before. The fact is, it is a silly rule when you 
come to look into it.” 

At this point the train-conductor arrived, and was 
going to shut down the game in a very high-handed 
fashion, but the parlor-car conductor stopped him 
and took him aside to explain. Nothing more was 
heard of the matter. 

I was ill in bed eleven days in Chicago and got no 
glimpse of the Fair, for I was obliged to return east 
as soon as I was able to travel. The Major secured 
and paid for a stateroom in a sleeper the day before 
we left, so that I could have plenty of room and be 
comfortable; but when we arrived at the station a 

95 








MARK TWAIN 


mistake had been made and our car had not been 
put on. The conductor had reserved a section for 
us—it was the best he could do, he said. But the 
Major said we were not in a hurry, and would wait 
for the car to be put on. The conductor responded, 
with pleasant irony: 

“It may be that you are not in a hurry, just as 
you say, but we are. Come, get aboard, gentle¬ 
men, get aboard—don’t keep us waiting.” 

But the Major would not get aboard himself nor 
allow me to do it. He wanted his car, and said he 
must have it. This made the hurried and perspiring 
conductor impatient, and he said: 

“It’s the best we can do —we can’t do impossi¬ 
bilities. You will take the section or go without. 
A mistake has been made and can’t be rectified at 
this late hour. It’s a thing that happens now and 
then, and there is nothing for it but to put up 
with it and make the best of it. Other peo¬ 
ple do.” 

“Ah, that is just it, you see. If they had stuck 
to their rights and enforced them you wouldn’t be 
trying to trample mine under foot in this bland way 
now. I haven’t any disposition to give you unneces¬ 
sary trouble, but it is my duty to protect the next 
man from this kind of imposition. So I must have 
my car. Otherwise I will wait in Chicago and sue 
the company for violating its contract.” 

“Sue the company?—for a thing like that!” 

“Certainly.” 

“Do you really mean that?” 

“Indeed, I do.” 


96 



TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 

The conductor looked the Major over wonder- 
ingly, and then said: 

“It beats me—it’s bran-new—I’ve never struck 
the mate to it before. But I swear I think you’d 
do it. Look here, I’ll send for the station-mas¬ 
ter.” 

When the station-master came he was a good deal 
annoyed—at the Major, not at the person who had 
made the mistake. He was rather brusque, and 
took the same position which the conductor had 
taken in the beginning; but he failed to move the 
soft-spoken artilleryman, who still insisted that he 
must have his car. However, it was plain that there 
was only one strong side in this case, and that that 
side was the Major’s. The station-master banished 
his annoyed manner, and became pleasant and even 
half apologetic. This made a good opening for a 
compromise, and the Major made a concession. He 
said he would give up the engaged stateroom, but 
he must have a stateroom. After a deal of ransack¬ 
ing, one was found whose owner was persuadable; 
he exchanged it for our section, and we got away at 
last. The conductor called on us in the evening, and 
was kind and courteous and obliging, and we had 
a long talk and got to be good friends. He said he 
wished the public would make trouble oftener— 
it would have a good effect. He said that the rail¬ 
roads could not be expected to do their whole duty by 
the traveler unless the traveler would take some 
interest in the matter himself. 

I hoped that we were done reforming for the trip 
now, but it was not so. In the hotel-car, in the 

97 




MARK TWAIN 

morning, the Major called for broiled chicken. The 
waiter said: 

“It’s not in the bill of fare, sir; we do not serve 
anything but what is in the bill.” 

“That gentleman yonder is eating a broiled 
chicken.” 

“Yes, but that is different. He is one of the 
superintendents of the road.” 

“Then all the more must I have broiled chicken. 
I do not like these discriminations. Please hurry— 
bring me a broiled chicken.” 

The waiter brought the steward, who explained 
in a low and polite voice that the thing was impos¬ 
sible—it was against the rule, and the rule was rigid. 

“Very well, then, you must either apply it im¬ 
partially or break it impartially. You must take 
that gentleman’s chicken away from him or bring 
me one.” 

The steward was puzzled, and did not quite know 
what to do. He began an incoherent argument, 
but the conductor came along just then, and asked 
what the difficulty was. The steward explained that 
here was a gentleman who was insisting on having a 
chicken when it was dead against the rule and not in 
the bill. The conductor said: 

“Stick by your rules—you haven’t any option. 
Wait a moment—is this the gentleman?” Then he 
laughed and said: “Never mind your rules—it’s my 
advice, and sound; give him anything he wants— 
don’t get him started on his rights. Give him what¬ 
ever he asks for; and if you haven’t got it, stop 
the train and get it.” 


98 




TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER 


The Major ate the chicken, but said he did it from 
a sense of duty and to establish a principle, for he 
did not like chicken. 

I missed the Fair, it is true, but I picked up 
some diplomatic tricks which I and the reader may 
find handy and useful as we go along. 


PRIVATE HISTORY OF THE 
“JUMPING FROG” STORY 

F IVE or six years ago a lady from Finland asked 
me to tell her a story in our negro dialect, so 
that she could get an idea of what that variety of 
speech was like. I told her one of Hopkinson Smith’s 
negro stories, and gave her a copy of Harper s 
Monthly containing it. She translated it for a 
Swedish newspaper, but by an oversight named me 
as the author of it instead of Smith. I was very 
sorry for that, because I got a good lashing in the 
Swedish press, which would have fallen to his share 
but for that mistake; for it was shown that Boccaccio 
had told that very story, in his curt and meager 
fashion, five hundred years before Smith took hold 
of it and made a good and tellable thing out of it. 

I have always been sorry for Smith. But my own 
turn has come now. A few weeks ago Professor Van 
Dyke, of Princeton, asked this question: 

Do you know how old your Jumping Frog story is ? ” 
And I answered: 

“Yes—forty-five years. The thing happened in 
Calaveras County in the spring of 1849.” 

“No; it happened earlier—a couple of thousand 
years earlier; it is a Greek story.” 

I was astonished—and hurt. I said: 


IOG 




THE '‘JUMPING FROG” 


“I am willing to be a literary thief if it has been 
so ordained; I am even willing to be caught robbing 
the ancient dead alongside of Hopkinson Smith, for 
he is my friend and a good fellow, and I think would 
be as honest as any one if he could do it without 
occasioning remark; but I am not willing to ante¬ 
date his crimes by fifteen hundred years. I must 
ask you to knock off part of that.” 

But the professor was not chaffing; he was in 
earnest, and could not abate a century. He named 
the Greek author, and offered to get the book and 
send it to me and the college text-book containing 
the English translation also. I thought I would like 
the translation best, because Greek makes me tired. 
January 30th he sent me the English version, and I 
will presently insert it in this article. It is my 
Jumping Frog tale in every essential. It is not 
strung out as I have strung it out, but it is all there. 

To me this is very curious and interesting. Curi¬ 
ous for several reasons. For instance: 

I heard the story told by a man who was not tell¬ 
ing it to his hearers as a thing new to them, but 
as a thing which they had witnessed and would re¬ 
member. He was a dull person, and ignorant; he 
had no gift as a story-teller, and no invention; in 
his mouth this episode was merely history—history 
and statistics; and the gravest sort of history, too; . 
he was entirely serious, for he was dealing with what 
to him were austere facts, and they interested him 
solely because they were facts; he was drawing on 
his memory, not his mind; he saw no humor in his 
tale, neither did his listeners; neither he nor they 

IOI 


MARK TWAIN 


ever smiled or laughed; in my time I have not 
attended a more solemn conference. To him and 
to his fellow gold-miners there were just two things 
in the story that were worth considering. One was 
the smartness of the stranger in taking in its hero, 
Jim Smiley, with a loaded frog; and the other was 
the stranger’s deep knowledge of a frog’s nature— 
for he knew (as the narrator asserted and the lis¬ 
teners conceded) that a frog likes shot and is always 
ready to eat it. Those men discussed those two 
points, and those only. They were hearty in their 
admiration of them, and none of the party was 
aware that a first-rate story had been told in a first- 
rate way, and that it was brimful of a quality whose 
presence they never suspected—humor. 

Now, then, the interesting question is, did the 
frog episode happen in Angel’s Camp in the spring 
of ’49, as told in my hearing that day in the fall of 
1865? I am perfectly sure that it did. I am also 
sure that its duplicate happened in Boeotia a couple 
of thousand years ago. I think it must be a case of 
history actually repeating itself, and not a case of a 
good story floating down the ages and surviving be¬ 
cause too good to be allowed to perish. 

I would now like to have the reader examine the 
Greek story and the story told by the dull and solemn 
Californian, and observe how exactly alike they are in 
essentials. 

[Translation] 

THE ATHENIAN AND THE FROG 1 

An Athenian once fell in with a Boeotian who was sitting by 
the roadside looking at a frog. Seeing the other approach, the 

^idgwick, Greek Prose Composition, page 116. 

102 





THE “JUMPING FROG’’ 


Boeotian said his was a remarkable frog, and asked if he would 
agree to start a contest of frogs, on condition that he whose frog 
jumped farthest should receive a large sum of money. The 
Athenian replied that he would if the other would fetch him a 
frog, for the lake was near. To this he agreed, and when he 
was gone the Athenian took the frog, and, opening its mouth, 
poured some stones into its stomach, so that it did not indeed 
seem larger than before, but could not jump. The Boeotian soon 
returned with the other frog, and the contest began. The 
second frog first was pinched, and jumped moderately; then they 
pinched the Boeotian frog. And he gathered himself for a leap, 
and used the utmost effort, but he could not move his body the 
least. So the Athenian departed with the money. When he 
was gone the Boeotian, wondering what was the matter with 
the frog, lifted him up and examined him. And being turned 
upside down, he opened his mouth and vomited out the stones. 

And here is the way it happened in California: 

FROM “the CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY” 

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and 
tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn’t rest, and 
you couldn’t fetch nothing for him to bet on but he’d match 
you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said 
he cal’lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for 
three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to 
jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too. He’d give him 
a little punch behind, and the next minute you’d see that frog 
whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, 
or maybe a couple if he got a good start, and come down flat- 
footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter 
of ketching flies, and kep’ him in practice so constant, that he’d 
nail a fly every time as fur as he could see him. Smiley said all a 
frog wanted was education, and he could do ’most anything—and 
I believe him. Why, I’ve seen him set Dan’l Webster down here 
on this floor—Dan’l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing 
out “Flies, Dan’l, flies!” and quicker’n you could wink he’d spring 
straight up and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down 
on the floor ag’in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching 
the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn’t 

8 


103 


MARK TWAIN 


r-vr- 


no idea he’d been doin’ any more’n any frog might do. You never 
see a frog so modest and straightfor’ard as he was, for all he was 
so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a 
dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than 
any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level 
was his strong suit, you understand; and when it came to that, 
Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. 
Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, 
for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres all said he 
laid over any frog that ever they see. 

Well, Smiley kep’ the beast in a little lattice box, and he used 
to fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day 
a feller—a stranger in the camp, he was—come acrost him with 
his box, and says: 

“What might it be that you’ve got in the box?” 

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, “ It might be a parrot, 
or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain’t—it’s only just a frog.” 

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it 
round this way and that, and says, “ H’m—so ’tis. Well, what’s 
he good for?” 

“Well,” Smiley says, easy and careless, “he’s good enough for 
one thing, I should judge—he can out jump any frog in Calaveras 
County.” 

The feller took the box again and took another long, particular 
look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, 
“Well,’’ he says, “I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s 
any better’n any other frog.” 

“Maybe you don’t,” Smiley says. “Maybe you understand 
frogs and maybe you don’t understand ’em; maybe you’ve had 
experience, and maybe you ain’t only a amature, as it were. 
Anyways, I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll resk forty dollars that he 
can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.” 

And the feller studies a minute, and then says, kinder sad-like, 
“Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I ain’t got no frog, but if 
I had a frog I’d bet you.” 

And then Smiley says: “That’s all right—that’s all right—if 
you’ll hold my box a minute, I’ll go and get you a frog.” And 
so the feller took the box and put up his forty dollars along with 
Smiley’s and set down to wait. 

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, 
and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took 

104 




THE "JUMPING FROG" 


a teaspoon and filled him full of quail-shot—filled him pretty 
near up to his chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went 
to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, 
and finally he ketched a frog and fetched him in and give him 
to this feller, and says: 

“Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his 
fore paws just even with DanTs, and I’ll give the word.” Then 
he says, “One—two—three— git!” and him and the feller 
touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off 
lively; but Dan’l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders— 
so—like a Frenchman, but it warn’t no use—he couldn’t budge; 
he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn’t no more 
stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal 
surprised, and he was disgusted, too, but he didn’t have no idea 
what the matter was, of course. 

The feller took the money and started away; and when he 
was going out at the door he sorter jerked his thumb over his 
shoulder—so—at Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate: “Well,” 
he says, “/ don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n 
any other frog.” 

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at 
Dan’l a long time, and at last he says, “ I do wonder what in the 
nation that frog throw’d off for—I wonder if there ain’t some¬ 
thing the matter with him—he ’pears to look mighty baggy, 
somehow.” And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and 
hefted him, and says, “Why, blame my cats if he don’t weigh 
five pound!” and turned him upside down, and he belched out 
a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he 
was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after 
that feller, but he never ketched him. 

The resemblances are deliciously exact. There 
you have the wily Boeotian and the wily Jim Smiley 
waiting—two thousand years apart—and waiting, 
each equipped with his frog and “laying” for the 
stranger. A contest is proposed—for money. The 
Athenian would take a chance “if the other would 
fetch him a frog”; the Yankee says: “I’m only a 
stranger here, and I ain’t got no frog; but if I had 
8 105 



MARK TWAIN 


a frog I’d bet you.” The wily Boeotian and the 
wily Californian, with that vast gulf of two thousand 
years between, retire eagerly and go frogging in the 
marsh; the Athenian and the Yankee remain behind 
and work a base advantage, the one with pebbles, 
the other with shot. Presently the contest began. 
In the one case “they pinched the Boeotian frog”; 
in the other, “him and the feller touched up the 
frogs from behind.” The Boeotian frog “gathered 
himself for a leap” (you can just see him!), “but 
could not move his body in the least ’ ’; the Cali¬ 
fornian frog “give a heave, but it warn’t no use—- 
he couldn’t budge.” In both the ancient and the 
modern cases the strangers departed with the 
money. The Boeotian and the Californian wonder 
what is the matter with their frogs; they lift them 
and examine; they turn them upside down and out 
spills the informing ballast. 

Yes, the resemblances are curiously exact. I 
used to tell the story of the Jumping Frog in San 
Francisco, and presently Artemus Ward came along 
and wanted it to help fill out a little book which he 
was about to publish; so I wrote it out and sent it 
to his publisher, Carleton; but Carleton thought the 
book had enough matter in it, so he gave the story 
to Henry Clapp as a present, and Clapp put it in 
his Saturday Press , and it killed that paper with a 
suddenness that was beyond praise. At least the 
paper died with that issue, and none but envious 
people have ever tried to rob me of the honor and 
credit of killing it. The “Jumping Frog” was the 
first piece of writing of mine that spread itself 

106 



THE “JUMPING FROG" 


through the newspapers and brought me into public 
notice. Consequently, the Saturday Press was a 
cocoon and I the worm in it; also, I was the gay- 
colored literary moth which its death set free. This 
simile has been used before. 

Early in ’66 the ‘‘J um pi n g Frog” was issued in 
book form, with other .sketches of mine. A year or 
two later Madame Blanc translated it into French 
and published it in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
but the result was not what should have been ex¬ 
pected, for the Revue struggled along and pulled 
through, and is alive yet. I think the fault must 
have been in the translation. I ought to have trans¬ 
lated it myself. I think so because I examined into 
the matter and finally retranslated the sketch from 
the French back into English, to see what the trouble 
was; that is, to see just what sort of a focus the 
French people got upon it. Then the mystery was 
explained. In French the story is too confused, and 
chaotic, and unreposeful, and ungrammatical, and 
insane; consequently it could only cause grief and 
sickness—it could not kill. A glance at my re¬ 
translation will show the reader that this must be 
true. 

[My Retranslation] 

THE FROG JUMPING OF THE COUNTY OF CALAVERAS 

Eh hien! this Smiley nourished some terriers a rats, and some 
cocks of combat, and some cats, and all sort of things; and with 
his rage of betting one no had more of repose. He trapped one 
day a frog and him imported with him (et Vemporta chez lui) 
saying that he pretended to make his education. You me 
believe if you will, but during three months he not has nothing 
done but to him apprehend to jump (apprendre a sauter ) in a 
court retired of her mansion (de sa maison). And I you respond 

IQ? 



MARK TWAIN 


that he have succeeded. He him gives a small blow by behind, 
and the instant after you shall see the frog turn in the air like 
a grease-biscuit, make one summersault, sometimes two, when 
she was well started, and re-fall upon his feet like a cat. He him 
had accomplished in the art of to gobble the flies (gober des 
mouches), and him there exercised continually—so well that a 
fly at the most far that she appeared was a fly lost. Smiley had 
custom to say that all which lacked to a frog it was the education, 
but with the education she could do nearly all—and I him believe. 
Tenez, I him have seen pose Daniel Webster there upon this 
plank—Daniel Webster was the name of the frog—and to him 
sing, “Some flies, Daniel, some flies!”—in a flash of the eye 
Daniel had bounded and seized a fly here upon the counter, 
then jumped anew at the earth, where he rested truly to him¬ 
self scratch the head with his behind-foot, as if he no had not 
the least idea of his superiority. Never you not have seen frog 
as modest, as natural, sweet as she was. And when he himself 
agitated to jump purely and simply upon plain earth, she does 
more ground in one jump than any beast of his species than you 
can know. 

To jump plain—this was his strong. When he himself agi¬ 
tated for that Smiley multiplied the bets upon her as long as 
there to him remained a red. It must to know, Smiley was 
monstrously proud of his frog, and he of it was right, for some 
men who were traveled, who had all seen, said that they to him 
would be injurious to him compare to another frog. Smiley 
guarded Daniel in a little box latticed which he carried by times 
to the village for some bet. 

One day an individual stranger at the camp him arrested with 
his box and him said: 

“What is this that you have then shut up there within?” 

Smiley said, with an air indifferent: 

“That could be a paroquet, or a syringe (ou tin serin), but this 
no is nothing of such, it not is but a frog.” 

The individual it took, it regarded with care, it turned from 
one side and from the other, then he said: 

u Tiens! in effect!—At what is she good?” 

“My God!” respond Smiley, always with an air disengaged, 
“she is good for one thing, to my notice (d nton avis), she can 
batter in jumping (elle petit batter en sautant ) all frogs of the 
county of Calaveras.” 

10S 


THE “JUMPING FROG’’ 


The individual re-took the box, it examined of new longly, and 
it rendered to Smiley in saying with an air deliberate: 

“Eh bienl I no saw not that that frog had nothing of better 
than each frog.” (Je ne vois pas que cette grenouille ait Hen de 
mieux qu'aucune grenouille.) [If that isn’t grammar gone to 
seed, then I count myself no judge.—M. T.] 

“Possible that you not it saw not,” said Smiley, “possible 
that you—you comprehend frogs; possible that you not you there 
comprehend nothing; possible that you had of the experience, 
and possible that you not be but an amateur. Of all manner 
{De toute manure ) I bet forty dollars that she batter in jumping 
no matter which frog of the county of Calaveras.” 

The individual reflected a second, and said like sad: 

“I not am but a stranger here, I no have not a frog; but if 
I of it had one, I would embrace the bet.” 

“Strong, well!” respond Smiley; “nothing of more facility. 
If you will hold my box a minute, I go you to search a frog 
( j’irai vous chercher ).” 

Behold, then, the individual, who guards the box, who puts 
his forty dollars upon those of Smiley, and who attends {el qui 
attend). He attended enough longtimes, reflecting all solely. 
And figure you that he takes Daniel, him opens the mouth by 
force and with a teaspoon him fills with shot of the hunt, even 
him fills just to the chin, then he him puts by the earth. Smiley 
during these times was at slopping in a swamp. Finally he 
trapped {attrape) a frog, him carried to that individual, and said: 

“Now if you be ready, put him all against Daniel, with their 
before-feet upon the same line, and I give the signal ”—then he 
added: “One, two, three—advance!” 

Him and the individual touched their frogs by behind, and 
the frog new put to jump smartly, but Daniel himself lifted 
ponderously, exalted the shoulders thus, like a Frenchman—to 
what good? he could not budge, he is planted solid like a church, 
he not advance no more than if one him had put at the anchor. 

Smiley was surprised and disgusted, but he not himself 
doubted not of the turn being intended {mais il ne se doutait pas 
du tour bien entendu). The individual empocketed the silver, 
himself with it went, and of it himself in going is that he no 
gives not a jerk of thumb over the shoulder—like that—at 
the poor Daniel, in saying with his air deliberate—( Vindividu 
empoche Vargent s'en va ct en s'en allant est ce qiCil ne donne pas 

109 


■ MARK TWAIN 


tin coup de pouce par-dessus Vepaule, comme ga, au pauvre Daniel , 
en disant de son air delibere.) 

“ Eh beinl I no see not that that frog has nothing of better than 
another ” 

Smiley himself scratched longtimes the head, the eyes fixed 
upon Daniel, until that which at last he said: 

“I me demand how the devil it makes itself that this beast 
has refused. Is it that she had something? One would believe 
that she is stuffed.” 

He grasped Daniel by the skin of the neck, him lifted and 
said: 

“The wolf me bite if he no weigh not five pounds.” 

He him reversed and the unhappy belched two handfuls of 
shot (et le malhcureux, etc.).—When Smiley recognized how it 
was, he was like mad. He deposited his frog by the earth and 
ran after the individual, but he not him caught never. 

It may be that there are people who can translate 
better than I can, but I am not acquainted with them. 

So ends the private and public history of the 
Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, an incident 
which has this unique feature about it—that it is 
both old and new, a “chestnut” and not a “chest¬ 
nut”; for it was original when it happened two 
thousand years ago, and was again original when it 
happened in California in our own time. 


MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


A MANUSCRIPT WITH A HISTORY 

Note to the Editor. —By glancing over the inclosed bundle 
of rusty old manuscript, you will perceive that I once made a 
great discovery: the discovery that certain sorts of thing which, 
from the beginning of the world, had always been regarded as 
merely “curious coincidences”—that is to say, accidents—were 
no more accidental than is the sending and receiving of a tele¬ 
gram an accident. I made this discovery sixteen or seventeen 
years ago, and gave it a name—“ Mental Telegraphy.” It is the 
same thing around the outer edges of which the Psychical 
Society of England began to group (and play with) four or five 
years ago, and which they named “Telepathy.” Within the 
last two or three years they have penetrated toward the heart 
of the matter, however, and have found out that mind can act 
upon mind in a quite detailed and elaborate way over vast 
stretches of land and water. And they have succeeded in doing, 
by their great credit and influence, what I could never have 
done—they have convinced the world that mental telegraphy is 
not a jest, but a fact, and that it is a thing not rare, but exceed¬ 
ingly common. They have done our age a service—and a very 
great service, I think. 

In this old manuscript you will find mention of an extraordi¬ 
nary experience of mine in the mental telegraphic fine, of date 
about the year 1874 or 1875—the one concerning the Great 
Bonanza book. It was this experience that called my attention 
to the matter under consideration. I began to keep a record, 
after that, of such experiences of mine as seemed explicable by 
the theory that minds telegraph thoughts to each other. In 
1878 I went to Germany and began to write the book called 
A Tramp Abroad. The bulk of this old batch of manuscript was 
written at that time and for that book. But I removed it when 


hi 


MARK TWAIN 


I came to revise the volume for the press; for I feared that the 
public would treat the thing as a joke and throw it aside, whereas 
I was in earnest. 

At home, eight or ten years ago, I tried to creep in under 
shelter of an authority grave enough to protect the article from 
ridicule —The North American Review. But Mr Metcalf wa2 
too wary for me. He said that to treat these mere “coinci¬ 
dences” seriously was a thing which the Review couldn’t dare 
to do; that I must put either my name or my nom de plume 
to the article, and thus save the Review from harm. But I 
couldn’t consent to that; it would be the surest possible way to 
defeat my desire that the public should receive the thing seri¬ 
ously, and be willing to stop and give it some fair degree of 
attention. So I pigeonholed the MS., because I could not get 
it published anonymously. 

Now see how the world has moved since then. These small 
experiences of mine, which were too formidable at that time for 
admission to a grave magazine—if the magazine must allow them 
to appear as something above and beyond “accidents” and 
“coincidences”—are trifling and commonplace now, since the 
flood of light recently cast upon mental telegraphy by the intelli¬ 
gent labors of the Psychical Society. But I think they are worth 
publishing, just to show what harmless and ordinary matters 
were considered dangerous and incredible eight or ten years ago. 

As I have said, the bulk of this old manuscript was written 
in 1878; a later part was written from time to time two, three, 
and four years afterward. The “Postscript” I add to-day 

May, ’78. —Another of those apparently trifling 
things has happened to me which puzzle and per¬ 
plex all men every now and then, keep them think¬ 
ing an hour or two, and leave their minds barren of 
explanation or solution at last. Here it is—and it 
looks inconsequential enough, I am obliged to say. 
A few days ago I said: “It must be that Frank 
Millet doesn’t know we are in Germany, or he 
would have written long before this. I have been 
on the point of dropping him a line at least a dozen 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


times during the past six weeks, but I always de¬ 
cided to wait a day or two longer, and see if we 
shouldn’t hear from him. But now I will write.” 
And so I did. I directed the letter to Paris, and 
thought, “Now we shall hear from him before this 
letter is fifty miles from Heidelberg—it always 
happens so.” 

True enough; but why should it? That is the 
puzzling part of it. We are always talking about 
letters “crossing” each other, for that is one of the 
very commonest accidents of this life. We call it 
“accident,” but perhaps we misname it. We have 
the instinct a dozen times a year that the letter we 
are writing is going to “cross” the other person’s 
letter; and if the reader will rack his memory a 
little he will recall the fact that this presentiment 
had strength enough to it to make him cut his 
letter down to a decided briefness, because it would 
be a waste of time to write a letter which was going 
to “cross,” and hence be a useless letter. I think 
that in my experience this instinct has generally 
come to me in cases where I had put off my letter 
a good while in the hope that the other person 
would write. 

Yes, as I was saying, I had waited five or six 
weeks; then I wrote but three lines, because I felt 
and seemed to know that a letter from Millet would 
cross mine. And so it did. He wrote the same day 
that I wrote. The letters crossed each other. His 
letter went to Berlin, care of the American minister, 
who sent it to me. In this letter Millet said he had 
been trying for six weeks to stumble upon somebody 


MARK TWAIN 


who knew my German addres, and at last the idea 
had occured to him that a letter sent to the care of 
the embassy at Berlin might possibly find me. 
Maybe it was an “ accident ” that he finally deter¬ 
mined to write me at the same moment that I finally 
determined to write him, but I think not. 

With me the most irritating thing has been to wait 
a tedious time in a purely business matter, hoping 
that the other party will do the writing, and then sit 
down and do it myself, perfectly satisfied that that 
other man is sitting down at the same moment to 
write a letter which will “cross” mine. And yet one 
must go on writing, just the same; because if you 
get up from your table and postpone, that other man 
will do the same thing, exactly as if you two were 
harnessed together like the Siamese twins, and must 
duplicate each other’s movements. 

Several months before I left home a New York 
firm did some work about the house for me, and 
did not make a success of it, as it seemed to me. 
When the bill came, I wrote and said I wanted the 
work perfected before I paid. They replied that they 
were very busy, but that as soon as they could spare 
the proper man the thing should be done. I waited 
more than two months, enduring as patiently as 
possible the companionship of bells which would 
fire away of their own accord sometimes when no¬ 
body was touching them, and at other times wouldn’t 
ring though you struck the button with a sledge¬ 
hammer. Many a time I got ready to write and then 
postponed it; but at last I sat down one evening and 
poured out my grief to the extent of a page or so, 

114 


MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 

and then cut my letter suddenly short, because a 
strong instinct told me that the firm had begun to 
move in the matter. When I came down to break¬ 
fast next morning the postman had not yet taken 
my letter away, but the electrical man had been 
there, done his work, and was gone again! He 
had received his orders the previous evening from 
his employers, and had come up by the night 
train. 

If that was an “accident,” it took about three 
months to get it up in good shape. 

One evening last summer I arrived in Washington, 
registered at the Arlington Hotel, and went to my 
room. I read and smoked until ten o’clock; then, 
finding I was not yet sleepy, I thought I would take 
a breath of fresh air. So I went forth in the rain, 
and tramped through one street after another in an 

aimless and enjoyable way. I knew that Mr. O-, 

a friend of mine, was in town, and I wished I might 
run across him; but I did not propose to hunt for 
him at midnight, especially as I did not know where 
he was stopping. Toward twelve o’clock the streets 
had become so deserted that I felt lonesome; so I 
stepped into a cigar shop far up the avenue, and 
remained there fifteen minutes, listening to some 
bummers discussing national politics. Suddenly the 
spirit of prophecy came upon me, and I said to 
myself, “Now I will go out at this door, turn to the 

left, walk ten steps, and meet Mr. O- face to 

face.” I did it, too! I could not see his face, 
because he had an umbrella before it, and it was 
pretty dark anyhow, but he interrupted the man 

n5 




MARK TWAIN 

he was walking and talking with, and I recognized 
his voice and stopped him. 

That I should step out there and stumble upon 

Mr. O- was nothing, but that I should know 

beforehand that I was going to do it was a good deal. 
It is a very curious thing when you come to look 
at it. I stood far within the cigar shop when I 
delivered my prophecy; I walked about five steps 
to the door, opened it, closed it after me, walked 
down a flight of three steps to the sidewalk, then 
turned to the left and walked four or five more, and 
found my man. I repeat that in itself the thing 
was nothing; but to know it would happen so 
beforehand , wasn’t that really curious? 

I have criticized absent people so often, and then 
discovered, to my humiliation, that I was talking 
with their relatives, that I have grown superstitious 
about that sort of thing and dropped it. How like 
an idiot one feels after a blunder like that! 

We are always mentioning people, and in that 
very instant they appear before us. We laugh, and 
say, “Speak of the devil,” and so forth, and there 
we drop it, considering it an “accident.” It is a 
cheap and convenient way of disposing of a grave 
and very puzzling mystery. The fact is, it does 
seem to happen too often to be an accident. 

Now I come to the oddest thing that ever hap¬ 
pened to me. Two or three years ago I was lying 
in bed, idly musing, one morning—it was the 2d of 
March—when suddenly a red-hot new idea came 
whistling down into my camp, and exploded with 
such comprehensive effectiveness as to sweep the 

116 





MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 

vicinity clean of rubbishy reflections and fill the air 
with their dust and flying fragments. This idea, 
stated in simple phrase, was that the time was ripe 
and the market ready for a certain book; a book 
which ought to be written at once; a book which 
must command attention and be of peculiar interest 
—to wit, a book about the Nevada silver-mines. 
The “Great Bonanza” was a new wonder then, and 
everybody was talking about it. It seemed to me 
that the person best qualified to write this book was 
Mr. William H. Wright, a journalist of Virginia, 
Nevada, by whose side I had scribbled many months 
when I was a reporter there ten or twelve years 
before. He might be alive still; he might be dead; 
I could not tell; but I would write him, anyway. I 
began by merely and modestly suggesting that he 
make such a book; but my interest grew as I went on, 
and I ventured to map out' what I thought ought to 
be the plan of the work, he being an old friend, and 
not given to taking good intentions for ill. I even 
dealt with details, and suggested the order and 
sequence which they should follow. I was about to 
put the manuscript in an envelope, when the thought 
occurred to me that if this book should be written 
at my suggestion, and then no publisher happened 
to want it, I should feel uncomfortable; so I con¬ 
cluded to keep my letter back until I should have 
secured a publisher. I pigeonholed my document, 
and dropped a note to my own publisher, asking him 
to name a day for a business consultation. He was 
out of town on a far journey. 

My note remained unanswered, and at the end 

117 


MARK TWAIN 


of three or four days the whole matter had passed 
out of my mind. On the 9th of March the postman 
brought three or four letters, and among them a 
thick one whose superscription was in a hand which 
seemed dimly familiar to me. I could not “place” 
it at first, but presently I succeeded. Then I said 
to a visiting relative who was present: 

“Now I will do a miracle. I will tell you every¬ 
thing this letter contains—date, signature, and all— 
without breaking the seal. It is from a Mr. Wright, 
of Virginia, Nevada, and is dated the 2d of March— 
seven days ago. Mr. Wright proposes to make a 
book about the silver-mines and the Great Bonanza, 
and asks what I, as a friend, think of the idea. He 
says his subjects are to be so and so, their order and 
sequence so and so, and he will close with a history 
of the chief feature of the book, me Great Bonanza.” 

I opened the letter, and showed that I had stated 
the date and the contents correctly. Mr. Wright’s 
letter simply contained what my own letter, written 
on the same date, contained, and mine still lay in 
its pigeonhole, where it had been lying during the 
seven days since it was written. 

There was no clairvoyance about this, if I rightly 
comprehend what clairvoyance is. I think the clair¬ 
voyant professes to actually see concealed writing, 
and read it off word for word. This was not my 
case. I only seemed to know, and to know abso¬ 
lutely, the contents of the letter in detail and due 
order, but I had to word them myself. I translated 
them, so to speak, out of Wright’s language into 
my own, 



i 


MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 

Wright’s letter and the one which I had written to 
him but never sent were in substance the same. 

Necessarily this could not come by accident; such 
elaborate accidents cannot happen. Chance might 
have duplicated one or two of the details, but she 
would have broken down on the rest. I could not 
doubt—there was no tenable reason for doubting— 
that Mr. Wright’s mind and mine had been in close 
and crystal-clear communication with each other 
across three thousand miles of mountain and desert 
on the morning of the 2d of March. I did not 
consider that both minds originated that succession 
of ideas, but that one mind originated it, and simply 
telegraphed it to the other. I was curious to know 
which brain was the telegrapher and which the 
receiver, so I wrote and asked for particulars. Mr. 
Wright’s reply showed that his mind had done the 
originating and telegraphing, and mine the receiving. 
Mark that significant thing now; consider for a 
moment how many a splendid “original” idea has 
been unconsciously stolen from a man three thousand 
miles away! If one should question that this is 
so, let him look into the cyclopedia and con once 
more that curious thing in the history of inventions 
which has puzzled every one so much—that is, the 
frequency with which the same machine or other 
contrivance has been invented at the same time by 
several persons in different quarters of the globe. 
The world was without an electric telegraph for 
several thousand years; then Professor Henry, the 
American, Wheatstone in England, Morse on the 
sea, and a German in Munich, all invented it at the 
9 


I IQ 



MARK TWAIN 


same time. The discovery of certain ways of apply¬ 
ing steam was made in two or three countries in the 
same year. Is it not possible that inventors are con¬ 
stantly and unwittingly stealing each other’s ideas 
whilst they stand thousands of miles asunder? 

Last spring a literary friend of mine, 1 who lived a 
hundred miles away, paid me a visit, and in the 
course of our talk he said he had made a discovery 
—conceived an entirely new idea—one which cer¬ 
tainly had never been used in literature. He told 
me what it was. I handed him a manuscript, and 
said he would find substantially the same idea in 
that—a manuscript which I had written a week 
before. The idea had been in my mind since the 
previous November; it had only entered his while I 
was putting it on paper, a week gone by. He had 
not yet written his; so he left it unwxitten, and 
gracefully made over all his right and title in the 
idea to me. 

The following statement, which I have clipped 
from a newspaper, is true. I had the facts from Mr. 
Howells’s lips when the episode was new: 

A remarkable story of a literary coineidence is told of 
Mr. Howells’s Atlantic Monthly serial, “Dr. Breen’s Practice.” 
A lady of Rochester, New York, contributed to the magazine 
after “ Dr. Breen’s Practice ” was in type, a short story which so 
much resembled Mr. Howells’s that he felt it necessary to call 
upon her and explain the situation of affairs in order that no 
charge of plagiarism might be preferred against him. He 
showed her the proof-sheets of his story, and satisfied her that 
the similarity between her work and his was one of those strange 
coincidences which have from time to time occurred in the literary 
world. 

nV. D. Howells. 

120 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


I had read portions of Mr. Howells’s story, both 
in MS. and in proof, before the lady offered her 
contribution to the magazine. 

Here is another case. I clip it from a newspaper: 

The republication of Miss Alcott’s novel Moods recalls to 
a writer in the Boston Post a singular coincidence which was 
brought to light before the book was first published: “Miss 
Anna M. Crane, of Baltimore, published Emily Chester , a 
novel which was pronounced a very striking and strong story. 
A comparison of this book with Moods showed that the two 
writers, though entire strangers to each other, and living hun¬ 
dreds of miles apart, had both chosen the same subject for their 
novels, had followed almost the same line of treatment up to a 
certain point, where the parallel ceased, and the denouements 
were entirely opposite. And even more curious, the leading 
characters in both books had identically the same names, so 
that the names in Miss Alcott’s novel had to be changed. Then 
the book was published by Loring.” 

Four or five times within my recollection there has 
been a lively newspaper war in this country over 
poems whose authorship was claimed by two or three 
different people at the same time. There was a war 
of this kind over “Nothing to Wear,” “Beautiful 
Snow,” “Rock me to Sleep, Mother,” and also over 
one of Mr. Will Carleton’s early ballads, I think. 
These were all blameless cases of unintentional and 
unwitting mental telegraphy, I judge. 

A word more as to Mr. Wright. He had had his 
book in mind some time; consequently he, and not 
I, had originated the idea of it. The subject was 
entirely foreign to my thoughts; I was wholly ab¬ 
sorbed in other things. Yet this friend, whom I 
had not seen and had hardly thought of for eleven 
years, was able to shoot his thoughts at me across 
9 121 


MARK TWAIN 


three thousand miles of country, and fill my head 
with them, to the exclusion of every other interest, 
in a single moment. He had begun his letter after 
finishing his work on the morning paper—a little 
after three o’clock, he said. When it was three in 
the morning in Nevada it was about six in Hartford, 
where I lay awake thinking about nothing in par¬ 
ticular; and just about that time his ideas came 
pouring into my head from across the continent, and 
I got up and put them on paper, under the im¬ 
pression that they were my own original thoughts. 

I have never seen any mesmeric or clairvoyant 
performances or spiritual manifestations which were 
in the least degree convincing—a fact which is not 
of consequence, since my opportunities have been 
meager; but I am forced to believe that one human 
mind (still inhabiting the flesh) can communicate 
with another, over any sort of a distance, and with¬ 
out any artificial preparation of “sympathetic con¬ 
ditions” to act as a transmitting agent. I suppose 
that when the sympathetic conditions happen to 
exist the two minds communicate with each other, 
and that otherwise they don’t; and I suppose that if 
the sympathetic conditions could be kept up right 
along, the two minds would continue to correspond 
without limit as to time. 

Now there is that curious thing which happens to 
everybody: suddenly a succession of thoughts or 
sensations flocks in upon you, which startles you with 
the weird idea that you have ages ago experienced 
just this succession of thoughts or sensations in a 
previous existence. The previous existence is pos- 

122 






MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


sible, no doubt, but I am persuaded that the solution 
of this hoary mystery lies not there, but in the fact 
that some far-off stranger has been telegraphing his 
thoughts and sensations into your consciousness, and 
that he stopped because some counter-current or 
other obstruction intruded and broke the line of 
communication. Perhaps they seem repetitions to 
you because they are repetitions, got at second hand 
from the other man. Possibly Mr. Brown, the 
“mind-reader,” reads other people’s minds, possibly 
he does not; but I know of a surety that I have read 
another man’s mind, and therefore I do not see why 
Mr. Brown shouldn’t do the like also. 

I wrote the foregoing about three years ago, in 
Heidelberg, and laid the manuscript aside, purposing 
to add to it instances of mind-telegraphing from 
time to time as they should fall under my experience. 
Meantime the “crossing” of letters has been so 
frequent as to become monotonous. However, I 
have managed to get something useful out of this 
hint; for now, when I get tired of waiting upon a 
man whom I very much wish to hear from, I sit 
down and compel him to write, whether he wants to 
or not; that is to say, I sit down and write him, and 
then tear my letter up, satisfied that my act has 
forced him to write me at the same moment. I do 
not need to mail my letter—the writing it is the 
only essential thing. 

Of course I have grown superstitious about this 
letter-crossing business — this was natural. We 
stayed awhile in Venice after leaving Heidelberg. 

123 


MARK TWAIN 


One day I was going down the Grand Canal in a 
gondola, when I heard a shout behind me, and looked 
around to see what the matter was; a gondola was 
rapidly following, and the gondolier was making 
signs to me to stop. I did so, and the pursuing boat 
ranged up alongside. There was an American lady 
in it—a resident of Venice. She was in a good deal 
of distress. She said: 

“There's a New York gentleman and his wife at 
the Hotel Britannia who arrived a week ago, expect¬ 
ing to find news of their son, whom they have heard 
nothing about during eight months. There was no 
news. The lady is down sick with despair; the 
gentleman can’t sleep or eat. Their son arrived at 
San Francisco eight months ago, and announced the 
fact in a letter to his parents the same day. That 
is the last trace of him. The parents have been in 
Europe ever since; but their trip has been spoiled, 
for they have occupied their time simply in drifting 
restlessly from place to place, and writing letters 
everywhere and to everybody, begging for news of 
their son; but the mystery remains as dense as ever. 
Now the gentleman wants to stop writing and go 
calling. He wants to cable San Francisco. He 
has never done it before, because he is afraid of— 
of he doesn't know what — death of his son, no 
doubt. But he wants somebody to advise him to 
cable; wants me to do it. Now I simply can’t; for 
if no news came, that mother yonder would die. 
So I have chased you up in order to get you to sup¬ 
port me in urging him to be patient, and put the 
thing off a week or two longer; it may be the 
. 124 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 

f 

saving of this lady. Come along; let’s not lose any 
time.” 

So I went along, but I had a program of my 
own. When I was introduced to the gentleman I 
said.: “I have some superstitions, but they are 
worthy of respect. If you will cable San Francisco 
immediately, you will hear news of your son inside 
of twenty-four hours. I don’t know that you will 
get the news from San Francisco, but you will get 
it from somewhere. The only necessary thing is to 
cable — that is all. The news will come within 
twenty-four hours. Cable Peking, if you prefer; 
there is no choice in this matter. This delay is all 
occasioned by your not cabling long ago, when you 
were first moved to do it.” 

It seems absurd that this gentleman should have 
been cheered up by this nonsense, but he was; he 
brightened up at once, and sent his cablegram; and 
next day, at noon, when a long letter arrived from his 
lost son, the man was as grateful to me as if I had 
really had something to do with the hurrying up of 
that letter. The son had shipped from San Fran¬ 
cisco in a sailing-vessel, and his letter was written 
from the first port he touched at, months afterward. 

This incident argues nothing, and is valueless. I 
insert it only to show how strong is the superstition 
which "letter-crossing” has bred in me. I was so 
sure that a cablegram sent to any place, no matter 
where, would defeat itself by "crossing” the incom¬ 
ing news, that my confidence was able to raise up a 
hopeless man and make him cheery and hopeful. 

But here are two or three incidents which come 

125 


MARK TWAIN 


strictly under the head of mind-telegraphing. One 
Monday morning, about a year ago, the mail came 
in, and I picked up one of the letters and said to a 
friend: “Without opening this letter I will tell you 

what it says. It is from Mrs.-, and she says she 

was in New York last Saturday, and was purposing 
to run up here in the afternoon train and surprise 
us, but at the last moment changed her mind and 
returned westward to her home.” 

I was right; my details were exactly correct. Yet 

we had had no suspicion that Mrs.-was coming 

to New York, or that she had even a remote inten- 
tion of visiting us. 

I smoke a good deal—that is to say, all the time— 
so, during seven years, I have tried to keep a box 
of matches handy, behind a picture on the mantel¬ 
piece; but I have had to take it out in trying, be¬ 
cause George (colored), who makes the fires and 
lights the gas, always uses my matches and never 
replaces them. Commands and persuasions have 
gone for nothing with him all these seven years. 
One day last summer, when our family had been 
away from home several months, I said to a member 
of the household: 

“Now, with all this long holiday, and nothing in 
the way to interrupt—” 

“I can finish the sentence for you,” said the mem¬ 
ber of the household. 

“Do it, then,” said I. 

“George ought to be able, by practising, to learn 
to let those matches alone.” 

It was correctly done. That was what I was 

126 






MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


going to say. Yet until that moment George and the 
matches had not been in my mind for three months, 
and it is plain that the part of the sentence which 
I uttered offers not the least cue or suggestion of 
what I was purposing to follow it with. 

My mother 1 is descended from the younger of two 
English brothers named Lambton, who settled in this 
country a few generations ago. The tradition goes 
that the elder of the two eventually fell heir to a 
certain estate in England (now an earldom), and 
died right away. This has always been the way 
with our family. They always die when they could 
make anything by not doing it. The two Lambtons 
left plenty of Lambtons behind them; and when at 
last, about fifty years ago, the English baronetcy 
was exalted to an earldom, the great tribe of Amer¬ 
ican Lambtons began to bestir themselves—that is, 
those descended from the elder branch. Ever since 
that day one or another of these has been fretting 
his life uselessly away with schemes to get at his 
“rights.” The present “rightful earl”—I mean the 
American one—used to write me occasionally, and 
try to interest me in his projected raids upon the 
title and estates by offering me a share in the latter 
portion of the spoil; but I have always managed to 
resist his temptations. 

Well, one day last summer I was lying under a 
tree, thinking about nothing in particular, when an 
absurd idea flashed into ;my head, and I said to 
a member of the household, “Suppose I should live 
to be ninety-two, and dumb and blind and toothless, 

1 She was still living when this was written. 

127 


MARK TWAIN 


and just as I was gasping out what was left of me 
on my death-bed—” 

“Wait, I will finish the sentence,” said a member 
of the household. 

“Go on,” said I. 

“Somebody should rush in with a document, and 
say, ‘All the other heirs are dead, and you are the 
Earl of Durham!’” 

That is truly what I was going to say. Yet until 
that moment the subject had not entered my mind 
or been referred to in my hearing for months before. 
A few years ago this thing would have astounded 
me, but the like could not much surprise me now, 
though it happened every week; for I think I know 
now that mind can communicate accurately with 
mind without the aid of the slow and clumsy vehicle 
of speech. 

This age does seem to have exhausted invention 
nearly; still, it has one important contract on its 
hands yet—the invention of the phrenophone; that 
is to say, a method whereby the communicating of 
mind with mind may be brought under command 
and reduced to certainty and system. The tele¬ 
graph and the telephone are going to become too 
slow and wordy for our needs. We must have the 
thought itself shot into our minds from a distance; 
then, if we need to put it into words, we can do 
that tedious work at our leisure. Doubtless the 
something which conveys our thoughts through the 
air from brain to brain is a finer and subtler form 
of electricity, and all we need do is to find out how 
to capture it and how to force it to do its work, as 

128 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


we have had to do in the case of the electric currents. 
Before the day of telegraphs neither one of these 
marvels would have seemed any easier to achieve 
than the other. 

While I am writing this, doubtless somebody on 
the other side of the globe is writing it, too. The 
question is, am I inspiring him or is he inspiring 
me? I cannot answer that; but that these thoughts 
have been passing through somebody else’s mind all 
the time I have been setting them down I have no 
sort of doubt. 

I will close this paper with a remark which I 
found some time ago in Boswell’s Johnson: 

“ Voltaire’s Candide is wonderfully similar in its 'plan and 
conduct to Johnson’s Rasselas; insomuch that I have heard 
Johnson say that if they had not been published so closely one 
after the other that there was not time for imitation, it would 
have been in vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest 
was taken from the other.” 

The two men were widely separated from each 
other at the time, and the sea lay between them. 


POSTSCRIPT 

In the Atlantic for June, 1882, Mr. John Fiske 
refers to the often-quoted Darwin-and-Wallace ‘‘co¬ 
incidence ’ ’: 

I alluded, just now, to the “unforeseen circumstance” which 
led Mr. Darwin in 1859 to break his long silence, and to write 
and publish the Origin of Species. This circumstance served, no 
less than the extraordinary success of his book, to show how ripe 
the minds of men had become for entertaining such views as 

129 


MARK TWAIN 


those which Mr. Darwin propounded. In 1858 Mr. Wallace, 
who was then engaged in studying the natural history of the 
Malay Archipelago, sent to Mr. Darwin (as the man most likely 
to understand him) a paper in which he sketched the outlines of 
a theory identical with that upon which Mr. Darwin had so long 
been at work. The same sequence of observed facts and infer¬ 
ences that had led Mr. Darwin to the discovery of natural 
selection and its consequences had led Mr. Wallace to the very 
threshold of the same discovery; but in Mr. Wallace’s mind the 
theory had by no means been wrought out to the same degree 
of completeness to which it had been wrought in the mind of 
Mr. Darwin. In the preface to his charming book on Natural 
Selection, Mr. Wallace, with rare modesty and candor, acknowl¬ 
edges that whatever value his speculations may have had, they 
have been utterly surpassed in richness and cogency of proof by 
those of Mr. Darwin. This is no doubt true, and Mr. Wallace 
has done such good work in further illustration of the theory 
that he can well afford to rest content with the second place in 
the first announcement of it. 

The coincidence, however, between Mr. Wallace’s conclu¬ 
sions and those of Mr. Darwin was very remarkable. But, after 
all, coincidences of this sort have not been uncommon in the 
history of scientific inquiry. Nor is it at all surprising that they 
should occur now and then, when we remember that a great and 
pregnant discovery must always be concerned with some question 
which many of the foremost minds in the world are busy thinking 
about. It was so with the discovery of the differential calculus, 
and again with the discovery of the planet Neptune. It was so 
with the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and with 
the establishment of the undulatory theory of light. It was so, 
to a considerable extent, with the introduction of the new 
chemistry, with the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of 
heat, and the whole doctrine of the correlation of forces. It was 
so with the invention of the electric telegraph and with the 
discovery of spectrum analysis. And it is not at all strange 
that it should have been so with the doctrine of the origin of 
species through natural selection. 

He thinks these “coincidences” were apt to hap¬ 
pen because the matters from which they sprang 

130 




MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


were matters which many of the foremost minds in 
the world were busy thinking about. But perhaps 
one man in each case did the telegraphing to the 
others. The aberrations which gave Leverrier the 
idea that there must be a planet of such and such 
mass and such and such orbit hidden from sight out 
yonder in the remote abysses of space were not new; 
they had been noticed by astronomers for genera¬ 
tions. Then why should it happen to occur to three 
people, widely separated—Leverrier, Mrs. Somer¬ 
ville, and Adams—to suddenly go to worrying about 
those aberrations all at the same time, and set them¬ 
selves to work to find out what caused them, and 
to measure and weigh an invisible planet, and 
calculate its orbit, and hunt it down and catch it?— 
a strange project which nobody but they had ever 
thought of before. If one astronomer had invented 
that odd and happy project fifty years before, don’t 
you think he would have telegraphed it to several 
others without knowing it? 

But now I come to a puzzler. How is it that 
inanimate objects are able to affect the mind ? They 
seem to do that. However, I wish to throw in a 
parenthesis first—just a reference to a thing every¬ 
body is familiar with—the experience of receiving a 
clear and particular answer to your telegram before 
your telegram has reached the sender of the answer. 
That is a case where your telegram has gone straight 
from your brain to the man it was meant for, far 
outstripping the wire’s slow electricity, and it is an 
exercise of mental telegraphy which is as common 
as dining. To return to the influence of inanimate 

131 


MARK TWAIN 


things. In the cases of non-professional clairvoyance 
examined by the Psychical Society the clairvoyant 
has usually been blindfolded, then some object which 
has been touched or worn by a person is placed in 
his hand; the clairvoyant immediately describes that 
person, and goes on and gives a history of some 
event with which the text object has been connected. 
If the inanimate object is able to affect and inform 
the clairvoyant’s mind, maybe it can do the same 
when it is working in the interest of mental teleg¬ 
raphy. Once a lady in the West wrote me that her 
son was coming to New York to remain three weeks, 
and would pay me a visit if invited, and she gave 
me his address. I mislaid the letter, and forgot all 
about the matter till the three weeks were about 
up. Then a sudden and fiery irruption of remorse 
burst up in my brain that illuminated all the region 
round about, and I sat down at once and wrote to 
the lady and asked for that lost address. But, upon 
reflection, I judged that the stirring up of my recol¬ 
lection had not been an accident, so I added a post¬ 
script to say, never mind, I should get a letter from 
her son before night. And I did get it; for the 
letter was already in the town, although not delivered 
yet. It had influenced me somehow. I have had 
so many experiences of this sort—a dozen of them 
at least—that I am nearly persuaded that inanimate 
objects do not confine their activities to helping the 
clairvoyant, but do every now and then give the 
mental telegraphist a lift. 

The case of mental telegraphy which I am coming 
to now comes under I don’t exactly know what 

132 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


head. I clipped it from one of our local papers 
six or eight years ago. I know the details to be 
right and true, for the story was told to me in the 
same form by one of the two persons concerned (a 
clergyman of Hartford) at the time that the curious 
thing happened: 

A Remarkable Coincidence. —Strange coincidences make 
the most interesting of stories and most curious of studies. 
Nobody can quite say how they come about, but everybody 
appreciates the fact when they do come, and it is seldom that 
any more complete and curious coincidence is recorded of minor 
importance than the following, which is absolutely true and 
occurred in this city. 

At the time of the building of one of the finest residences of 
Hartford, which is still a very new house, a local firm supplied 
the wall-paper for certain rooms, contracting both to furnish 
and to put on the paper. It happened that they did not calcu¬ 
late the size of one room exactly right, and the paper of the 
design selected for it fell short just half a roll. They asked for 
delay enough to send on to the manufacturers for what was 
needed, and were told that there was no especial hurry. It 
happened that the manufacturers had none on hand, and had 
destroyed the blocks from which it was printed. They wrote 
that they had a full list of the dealers to whom they had sold 
that paper, and that they would write to each of these and get 
from some of them a roll. It might involve a delay of a couple 
of weeks, but they would surely get it. 

In the course of time came a letter saying that, to their 
great surprise, they could not find a single roll. Such a thing 
was very unusual, but in this case it had so happened. Accord¬ 
ingly the local firm asked for further time, saying they would 
write to their own customers who had bought of that pattern, 
and would get the piece from them. But to their surprise, this 
effort also failed. A long time had now elapsed, and there was 
no use of delaying any longer. They had contracted to paper 
the room, and their only course was to take off that which 
was insufficient and put on some other of which there was enough 
to go around. Accordingly at length a man was sent out to 

133 



MARK TWAIN 




remove the paper. He got his apparatus ready, and was about 
to begin to work, under the direction of the owner of the build¬ 
ing, when the latter was for the moment called away. The 
house was large and very interesting, and so many people had 
rambled about it that finally admission had been refused by a 
sign at the door. On the occasion, however, when a gentleman 
had knocked and asked for leave to look about, the owner, 
being on the premises, had been sent for to reply to the request 
in person. That was the call that for the moment delayed the 
final preparations. The gentleman went to the door and ad¬ 
mitted the stranger, saying he would show him about the house, 
but first must return for a moment to that room to finish his 
directions there, and he told the curious story about the paper as 
they went on. They entered the room together, and the first 
thing the stranger, who lived fifty miles away, said on looking 
about was, “Why, I have that very paper on a room in my house, 
and I have an extra roll of it laid away, which is at your service.” 
In a few days the wall was papered according to the original 
contract. Had not the owner been at the house, the stranger 
would not have been admitted; had he called a day later, it 
would have been too late; had not the facts been almost acci¬ 
dentally told to him, he would probably have said nothing of the 
paper, and so on. The exact fitting of all the circumstances is 
something very remarkable, and makes one of those stories that 
seem hardly accidental in their nature. 

Something that happened the other day brought 
my hoary MS. to mind, and that is how I came 
to dig it out from its dusty pigeonhole grave for 
publication. The thing that happened was a ques¬ 
tion. A lady asked: “Have you ever had a vision 
—when awake?” I was about to answer promptly, 
when the last two words of the question began to 
grow and spread and swell, and presently they at¬ 
tained to vast dimensions. She did not know that 
they were important; and I did not at first, but I 
soon saw that they were putting me on the track of 
the solution of a mystery which had perplexed me 

i34 








MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


a good deal. You will see what I mean when I get 
down to it. Ever since the English Society for 
Psychical Research began its investigations of ghost 
stories, haunted houses, and apparitions of the living 
and the dead, I have read their pamphlets with 
avidity as fast as they arrived. Now one of their 
commonest inquiries of a dreamer or a vision-seer 
is, “Are you sure you were awake at the time?” 
If the man can’t say he is sure he was awake, a 
doubt falls upon his tale right there. But if he is 
positive he was awake, and offers reasonable evi¬ 
dence to substantiate it, the fact counts largely for 
the credibility of his story. It does with the 
society, and it did with me until that lady asked 
me the above question the other day. 

The question set me to considering, and brought 
me to the conclusion that you can be asleep—at 
least, wholly unconscious—for a time, and not sus¬ 
pect that it has happened, and not have any way 
to prove that it has happened. A memorable case 
was in my mind. About a year ago I was standing 
on the porch one day, when I saw a man coming 
up the walk. He was a stranger, and I hoped he 
would ring and carry his business into the house 
without stopping to argue with me; he would have 
to pass the front door to get to me, and I hoped he 
wouldn’t take the trouble; to help, I tried to look 
like a stranger myself—-it often works. I was look¬ 
ing straight at that man; he had got to within ten 
feet of the door and within twenty-five feet of me— 
and suddenly he disappeared. It was as astounding 
as if a church should vanish from before your face 

i35 


10 




MARK TWAIN 


and leave nothing behind it but a vacant lot. I 
was unspeakably delighted. I had seen an appari¬ 
tion at last, with my own eyes, in broad daylight. 
I made up my mind to write an account of it to the 
society. I ran to where the specter had been, to 
make sure he was playing fair, then I ran to the 
other end of the porch, scanning the open grounds 
as I went. No, everything was perfect; he couldn’t 
have escaped without my seeing him; he was an 
apparition, without the slightest doubt, and I would 
write him up before he was cold. I ran, hot with 
excitement, and let myself in with a latch-key. 
When I stepped into the hall my lungs collapsed and 
my heart stood still. For there sat that same appa¬ 
rition in a chair all alone, and as quiet and reposeful 
as if he had come to stay a year! The shock kept 
me dumb for a moment or two then I said, “Did 
you come in at that door?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you open it, or did you ring?” 

“I rang, and the colored man opened it.” 

I said to myself: “This is astonishing. It takes 
George all of two minutes to answer the door-bell 
when he is in a hurry, and I have never seen him in a 
hurry. How did this man stand two minutes at that 
door, within five steps of me, and I did not see him?” 

I should have gone to my grave puzzling over that 
riddle but for that lady’s chance question last week: 
“Have you ever had a vision—when awake?” It 
stands explained now. During at least sixty seconds 
that day I was asleep, or at least totally unconscious, 
without suspecting it. In that interval the man 

136 


MENTAL TELEGRAPHY 


came to my immediate vicinity, rang, stood there and 
waited, then entered and closed the door, and I did 
not see him and did not hear the door slam. 

If he had slipped around the house in that interval 
and gone into the cellar—he had time enough—I 
should have written him up for the society, and 
magnified him, and gloated over him, and hurrahed 
about him, and thirty yoke of oxen could not have 
pulled the belief out of me that I was of the favored 
ones of the earth, and had seen a vision—while wide 
awake. 

Now how are you to tell when you are awake? 
What are you to go by ? People bite their fingers to 
find out. Why, you can do that in a dream. 

IO 






MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN 


1 HAVE three or four curious incidents to tell 
about. They seem to come under the head of 
what I named “Mental Telegraphy” in a paper 
written seventeen years ago, and published long 
afterward. 

Several years ago I made a campaign on the plat¬ 
form with Mr. George W. Cable. In Montreal we 
were honored with a reception. It began at two in 
the afternoon in a long drawing-room in the Windsor 
Hotel. Mr. Cable and I stood at one end of this 
room, and the ladies and gentlemen entered it at the 
other end, crossed it at that end, then came up the 
long left-hand side, shook hands with us, said a 
word or two, and passed on, in the usual way. My 
sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently recog¬ 
nized a familiar face among the throng of strangers 
drifting in at the distant door, and I said to myself, 
with surprise and high gratification, “That is Mrs. 
R.; I had forgotten that she was a Canadian.” She 
had been a great friend of mine in Carson City, 
Nevada, in the early days. I had not seen her or 
heard of her for twenty years; I had not been 
thinking about her; there was nothing to suggest her 
to me, nothing to bring her to my mind; in fact, to 

138 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN 

me she had long ago ceased to exist, and had dis¬ 
appeared from my consciousness. But I knew her 
instantly; and I saw her so clearly that I was able 
to note some of the particulars of her dress, and did 
note them, and they remained in my mind. I was 
impatient for her to come. In the midst of the hand¬ 
shakings I snatched glimpses of her and noted her 
progress with the slow-moving file across the end of 
the room; then I saw her start up the side, and this 
gave me a full front view of her face. I saw her last 
when she was within twenty-five feet of me. For an 
hour I kept thinking she must still be in the room 
somewhere and would come at last, but I was 
disappointed. 

When I arrived in the lecture-hall that evening 
some one said: “Come into the waiting-room; there’s 
a friend of yours there who wants to see you. You’ll 
not be introduced—you are to do the recognizing 
without help if you can.” 

I said to myself: “It is Mrs. R.; I sha’n’t have 
any trouble.” 

There were perhaps ten ladies present, all seated. 
In the midst of them was Mrs. R., as I had ex¬ 
pected. She was dressed exactly as she was when 
I had seen her in the afternoon. I went forward and 
shook hands with her and called her by name, and 
said: 

“I knew you the moment you appeared at the 
reception this afternoon.” 

She looked surprised, and said: “But I was not 
at the reception. I have just arrived from Quebec, 
and have not been in town an hour,” 

139 





MARK TWAIN 


It was my turn to be surprised now. I said: 
“I can’t help it. I give you my word of honor that 
it is as I say. I saw you at the reception, and you 
were dressed precisely as you are now. When they 
told me a moment ago that I should find a friend in 
this room, your image rose before me, dress and all, 
just as I had seen you at the reception.” 

Those are the facts. She was not at the reception 
at all, or anywhere near it; but I saw her there never¬ 
theless, and most clearly and unmistakably. To that 
I could make oath. How is one to explain this? I 
was not thinking of her at the time; had not thought 
of her for years. But she had been thinking of me, 
no doubt; did her thoughts flit through leagues of 
air to me, and bring with it that clear and pleasant 
vision of herself ? I think so. That was and remains 
my sole experience in the matter of apparitions—I 
mean apparitions that come when one is (ostensibly) 
awake. I could have been asleep for a moment; 
the apparition could have been the creature of a 
dream. Still, that is nothing to the point; the 
feature of interest is the happening of the thing 
just at that time, instead of at an earlier or later 
time, which is argument that its origin lay in 
thought-transference. 

My next incident will be set aside by most persons 
as being merely a “coincidence,” I suppose. Years 
ago I used to think sometimes of making a lecturing 
trip through the antipodes and the borders of the 
Orient, but always gave up the idea, partly because 
of the great length of the journey and partly because 
my wife could not well manage to go with me. 

140 


MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN 

Toward the end of last January that idea, after an 
interval of years, came suddenly into my head again 

forcefully, too, and without any apparent reason. 
Whence came it? What suggested it? I will touch 
upon that presently. 

I was at that time where I am now—in Paris. I 
wrote at once to Henry M. Stanley (London), and 
asked him some questions about his Australian 
lecture tour, and inquired who had conducted him 
and what were the terms. After a day or two his 
answer came. It began: 

The lecture agent for Australia and New Zealand is par 
excellence Mr. R. S. Smythe, of Melbourne. 

He added his itinerary, terms, sea expenses, and 
some other matters, and advised me to write Mr. 
Smythe, which I did—February 3d. I began my 
letter by saying in substance that, while he did not 
know me personally, we had a mutual friend in 
Stanley, and that would answer for an introduc¬ 
tion. Then I proposed my trip, and asked if he 
would give me the same terms which he had given 
Stanley. 

I mailed my letter to Mr. Smythe February 6th, 
and three days later I got a letter from the selfsame 
Smythe, dated Melbourne, December 17th. I would 
as soon have expected to get a letter from the late 
George Washington. The letter began somewhat as 
mine to him had begun—with a self-introduction: 

Dear Mr. Clemens. —It is so long since Archibald Forbes 
and I spent that pleasant afternoon in your comfortable house 
at Hartford that you have probably quite forgotten the occasion. 

141 







MARK TWAIN 


In the course of his letter this occurs: 

I am willing to give you [here he named the terms which he 
had given Stanley] for an antipodean tour to last, say, three 
months. 

Here was the single essential detail of my letter 
answered three days after I had mailed my inquiry. 
I might have saved myself the trouble and the 
postage—and a few years ago I would have done 
that very thing, for I would have argued that my 
sudden and strong impulse to write and ask some 
questions of a stranger on the under side of the globe 
meant that the impulse came from that stranger, and 
that he would answer my questions of his own 
motion if I would let him alone. 

Mr. Smythe’s letter probably passed under my 
nose on its way to lose three weeks traveling to 
America and back, and gave me a whiff of its con¬ 
tents as it went along. Letters often act like that. 
Instead of the thought coming to you in an instant 
from Australia, the (apparently) unsentient letter 
imparts it to you as it glides invisibly past your 
elbow in the mail-bag. 

Next incident. In the following month—March 
—I was in America. I spent a Sunday at Irvington- 
on-the-Hudson with Mr. John Brisben Walker, of 
the Cosmopolitan magazine. We came into New 
York next morning, and went to the Century Club 
for luncheon. He said some praiseful things about 
the character of the club and the orderly serenity and 
pleasantness of its quarters, and asked if I had never 
tried to acquire membership in it. I said I had not, 

142 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN 


and that New York clubs were a continuous expense 
to the country members without being of frequent 
use or benefit to them. 

“And now Pve got an idea!” said I. “There’s 
the Lotos—the first New York club I was ever a 
member of—my very earliest love in that line. I 
have been a member of it for considerably more than 
twenty years, yet have seldom had a chance to look 
in and see the boys. They turn gray and grow old 
while I am not watching. And my dues go on. I 
am going to Hartford this afternoon for a day or 
two, but as soon as I get back I will go to John 
Elderkin very privately and say: ‘Remember the 
veteran and confer distinction upon him, for the sake 
of old times. Make me an honorary member agd 
abolish the tax. If you haven’t any such thing as 
honorary membership, all the better—create it for 
my honor and glory.’ That would be a great thing; 
I will go to John Elderkin as soon as I get back from 
Hartford.” 

I took the last express that afternoon, first tele¬ 
graphing Mr. F. G. Whitmore to come and see me 
next day. When he came he asked: 

“Did you get a letter from Mr. John Elderkin, 
secretary of the Lotos Club, before you left New 
York?” 

“No.” 

“Then it just missed you. If I had known you 
were coming I would have kept it. It is beautiful, 
and will make you proud. The Board of Directors, 
by unanimous vote, have made your a life member, 
and squelched those dues; and you are to be on hand 

M3 






MARK TWAIN 


and receive your dist net on on the night of the 30th, 
which is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding 
of the club, and it will not surprise me if they have 
some great times there.” 

What put the honorary membership in my head 
that day in the Century Club? for I had never 
thought of it before. I don’t know what brought 
the thought to me at that particular time instead of 
earlier, but I am well satisfied that it originated with 
the Board of Directors, and had been on its way to 
my brain through the air ever since the moment that 
saw their vote recorded. 

Another incident. I was in Hartford two or three 
days as a guest of the Rev. Joseph H. Twichell. I 
have held the rank of Honorary Uncle to his children 
for a quarter of a century, and I went out with him 
in the trollery-car to visit one of my nieces, who is 
at Miss Porter’s famous school in Farmington. The 
distance is eight or nine miles. On the way, talking, 
I illustrated something with an anecdote. This is 
the anecdote: 

Two years and a half ago I and the family arrived 
at Milan on our way to Rome, and stopped at the 
Continental. After dinner I went below and took a 
seat in the stone-paved court, where the customary 
lemon trees stand in the customary tubs, and said 
to myself, ‘‘Now this is comfort, comfort and repose, 
and nobody to disturb it; I do not know anybody 
in Milan.” 

Then a young gentleman stepped up and shook 
hands, which damaged my theory. He said, in 
substance: 


144 



MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN 


“You won’t remember me, Mr. Clemens, but I 
remember you very well. I was a cadet at West 
Point when you and Rev. Joseph H. Twichell came 
there some years ago and talked to us on a Hun¬ 
dredth Night. I am a lieutenant in the regular 
army now, and my name is H. I am in Europe, all 
alone, for a modest little tour; my regiment is in 
Arizona.” 

We became friendly and sociable, and in the course 
of the talk he told me of an adventure which had 
befallen him—about to this effect: 

‘ ‘ I was at Bellagio, stopping at the big hotel there, 
and ten days ago I lost my letter of credit. I did 
not know what in the world to do. I was a stranger; 
I knew no one in Europe; I hadn’t a penny in my 
pocket; I couldn’t even send a telegram to London 
to get my lost letter replaced; my hotel bill was a 
week old, and the presentation of it imminent—so 
imminent that it could happen at any moment now. 
I was so frightened that my wits seemed to leave 
me. I tramped and tramped, back and forth, like 
a crazy person. If anybody approached me I hur¬ 
ried away, for no matter what a person looked like, 
I took him for the head waiter with the bill. 

“I was at last in such a desperate state that I 
was ready to do any wild thing that promised even 
the shadow of help, and so this is the insane thing 
that I did. I saw a family lunching at a small 
table on the veranda, and recognized their national¬ 
ity—Americans—father, mother, and several young 
daughters—young, tastefully dressed, and pretty— 
the rule with our people. I went straight there in 

i45 



MARK TWAIN 


my civilian costume, named my name, said I was 
a lieutenant in the army, and told my story and 
asked for help. 

“What do you suppose the gentleman did? But 
you would not guess in twenty years. He took out 
a handful of go d coin and told me to help myself— 
freely. That is what he did.” 

The next morning the lieutenant told me his new 
letter of credit had arrived in the night, so we strolled 
to Cook’s to draw money to pay back the benefactor 
with. We got it, and then went strolling through 
the great arcade. Presently he said, “Yonder they 
are; come and be introduced.” I was introduced to 
the parents and the young ladies; then we separated, 
and I never saw him or them any m— 

“Here we are at Farmington,” said Twichell, 
interrupting. 

We left the trolley-car and tramped through the 
mud a hundred yards or so to the school, talking 
about the time we and Warner walked out there 
years ago, and the pleasant time we had. 

We had a visit with my niece in the parlor, then 
started for the trolley again. Outside the house we 
encountered a double rank of twenty or thirty of 
Miss Porter’s young ladies arriving from a walk, and 
we stood aside, ostensibly to let them have room to 
file past, but really to look at them. Presently one 
of them stepped out of the rank and said: 

“You don’t know me, Mr. Twichell, but I know 
your daughter and that gives me the privilege of 
shaking hands with you.” 

Then she put out her hand to me, and said; 

146 


MENTAL TELEGRAPHY AGAIN 


“And I wish to shake hands with you too, Mr. 
Clemens. You don’t remember me, but you were 
introduced to me in the arcade in Milan two years 
and a half ago by Lieutenant H.” 

What had put that story into my head after all 
that stretch of time? Was it just the proximity of 
that young girl, or was it merely an odd accident? 


WHAT PAUL BOURGET THINKS 

OF US 


H E reports the American joke correctly. In 
Boston they ask, How much does he know? 
in New York, How much is he worth? in Philadel¬ 
phia, Who were his parents? And when an alien 
observer turns his telescope upon us—advertisedly 
in our own special interest—a natural apprehension 
moves us to ask, What is the diameter of his reflector ? 

I take a great interest in M. Bourget’s chapters, 
for I know by the newspapers that there are several 
Americans who are expecting to get a whole educa¬ 
tion out of them; several who foresaw, and also 
foretold, that our long night was over, and a light 
almost divine about to break upon the land. 

His utterances concerning us are bound to be weighty and well 
timed. 

He gives us an object lesson which should be thoughtfully and 
profitably studied. 

These well-considered and important verdicts were 
of a nature to restore public confidence, which had 
been disquieted by questionings as to whether so 
young a teacher would be qualified to take so large 
a class as seventy million, distributed over so exten¬ 
sive a school-house as America, and pull it through 
without assistance. 


148 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

I was even disquieted myself, although I am of a 
cold, calm temperament, and not easily disturbed. 
I feared for my country. And I was not wholly 
tranquilized by the verdicts rendered as above. It 
seemed to me that there was still room for doubt. 
In fact, in looking the ground over I became more 
disturbed than I was before. Many worrying ques¬ 
tions came up in my mind. Two were prominent. 
Where had the teacher gotten his equipment ? What 
was his method? 

He had gotten his equipment in France. 

Then as to his method! I saw by his own inti¬ 
mations that he was an Observer, and had a System 
—that used by naturalists and other scientists. The 
naturalist collects many bugs and reptiles and butter¬ 
flies and studies their ways a long time patiently.- 
By this means he is presently able to group these 
creatures into families and subdivisions of families 
by nice shadings of differences observable in their 
characters. Then he labels all those shaded bugs 
and things with nicely descriptive group names, and 
is now happy, for his great work is completed, and 
as a result he intimately knows every bug and shade 
of a bug there, inside and out. It may be true, but 
a person who was not a naturalist would feel safer 
about it if he had the opinion of the bug. I think 

r-> 

it is a pleasant System, but subject to error. 

The Observer of Peoples has to be a Classifier, a 
Grouper, a Deducer, a Generalizer, a Psychologizer; 
and, first and last, a Thinker. He has to be all these, 
and when he is at home, observing his own folk, he 
is often able to prove competency. But history has 

149 


MARK TWAIN 


shown that when he is abroad observing unfamiliar 
peoples the chances are heavily against him. He is 
then a naturalist observing a bug, with no more than 
a naturalist’s chance of being able to tell the bug 
anything new about itself, and no more than a 
naturalist’s chance of being able to teach it any 
new ways which it will prefer to its own. 

To return to that first question. M. Bourget, as 
teacher, would simply be France teaching America. 
It seemed to me that the outlook was dark—almost 
Egyptian, in fact. What would the new teacher, 
representing France, teach us? Railroading? No. 
France knows nothing valuable about railroading. 
vSteamshipping ? No. France has no superiorities 
over us in that matter. Steamboating? No. French 
steamboating is still of Fulton’s date—1809. Postal 
service? No. France is a back number there. 
Telegraphy? No, we taught her that ourselves. 
Journalism? No. Magazining? No, that is our 
own specialty. Government? No; Liberty, Equal¬ 
ity, Fraternity, Nobility, Democracy, Adultery—the 
system is too variegated for our climate. Religion? 
No, not variegated enough for our climate. Morals? 
No, we cannot rob the poor to enrich ourselves. 
Novel-writing? No. M. Bourget and the others 
know only one plan, and when that is expurgated 
there is nothing left of the book. 

I wish I could think what he is going to teach us. 
Can it be Deportment ? But he experimented in that 
at Newport and failed to give satisfaction, except 
to a few. Those few are pleased. They are enjoy¬ 
ing their joy as well as they can, They confess 

150 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

their happiness to the interviewer. They feel pretty 
striped, but they remember with reverent recog¬ 
nition that they had sugar between the cuts. True, 
sugar with sand in it, but sugar. And true, they 
had some trouble to tell which was sugar and which 
was sand, because the sugar itself looked just like 
the sand, and also had a gravelly taste; still, they 
knew that the sugar was there, and would have 
been very good sugar indeed if it had been screened. 
Yes, they are pleased; not noisily so, but pleased; 
invaded, or streaked, as one may say, with little 
recurrent shivers of joy—subdued joy, so to speak, 
not the overdone kind. And they commune to¬ 
gether, these, and massage each other with comfort¬ 
ing sayings, in a sweet spirit of resignation and 
thankfulness, mixing these elements in the same 
proportions as the sugar and the sand, as a memo¬ 
rial, and saying, the one to the other, and to the 
interviewer: “It was severe—yes, it was bitterly 
severe; but oh, how true it was; and it will do us 
so much good!” 

If it isn’t Deportment, what is left? It was at 
this point that I seemed to get on the right track at 
last. M. Bourget would teach us to know ourselves; 
that was it: he would reveal us to ourselves. That 
would be an education. He would explain us to 
ourselves. Then we should understand ourselves; 
and after that be able to go on more intelligently. 

It seemed a doubtful scheme. He could explain 
us to himself—that would be easy. That would be 
the same as the naturalist explaining the bug to 
himself. But to explain the bug to the bug—that 



MARK TWAIN 


is quite a different matter. The bug may not know 
himself perfectly, but he knows himself better than 
the naturalist can know him, at any rate. 

A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a 
nation, but I think that that is as far as he can get. 
I think that no foreigner can report its interior—its 
soul, its life, its speech, its thought. I think that a 
knowledge of these things is acquirable in only one 
way—not two or four or six— absorption; years and 
years of unconscious absorption; years and years of 
intercourse with the life concerned; of living it, 
indeed; sharing personally in its shames and prides, 
its joys and griefs, its loves and hates, its prosperities 
and reverses, its shows and shabbinesses, its deep 
patriotisms, its whirlwinds of political passion, its 
adorations—of flag, and heroic dead, and the glory 
of the national name. Observation? Of what real 
value is it? One learns peoples through the heart, 
not the eyes or the intellect. 

There is only one expert who is qualified to ex¬ 
amine the souls and the life of a people and make a 
valuable report—the native novelist. This expert is 
so rare that the most populous country can never 
have fifteen conspicuously and confessedly compe¬ 
tent ones in stock at one time. This native specialist 
is not qualified to begin work until he has been 
absorbing during twenty-five years. How much of 
his competency is derived from conscious “observa¬ 
tion”? The amount is so slight that it counts for 
next to nothing in the equipment. Almost the 
whole capital of the novelist is the slow accumula¬ 
tion of unconscious observation—absorption. The 

152 




WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

native expert’s intentional observation of manners, 
speech, character, and ways of life can have value, 
for the native knows what they mean without having 
to cipher out the meaning. But I should be aston¬ 
ished to see a foreigner get at the right meanings, 
catch the elusive shades of these subtle things. 
Even the native novelist becomes a foreigner, with 
a foreigner’s limitations, when he steps from the 
state whose life is familiar to him into a state whose 
life he has not lived. Bret Harte got his California 
and his Californians by unconscious absorption, and 
put both of them into his tales alive. But when he 
came from the Pacific to the Atlantic and tried to 
do Newport life from study—conscious observation 
—his failure was absolutely monumental. Newport 
is a disastrous place for the unacclimated observer, 
evidently. 

To return to novel-building. Does the native 
novelist try to generalize the nation? No, he lays 
plainly before you the ways and speech and life of a 
few people grouped in a certain place—his own 
place—and that is one book. In time he and his 
brethren will report to you the life and the people 
of the whole nation—the life of a group in a New 
England village; in a New York village; in a Texan 
village; in an Oregon village; in villages in fifty 
states and territories; then the farm-life in fifty 
states and territories; a hundred patches of life and 
groups of people in a dozen widely separated cities. 
And the Indians will be attended to; and the cow¬ 
boys ; and the gold and silver miners; and the negroes; 
and the Idiots and Congressmen; and the Irish, the 

i53 


11 




MARK TWAIN 


Germans, the Italians, the Swedes, the French, the 
Chinamen, the Greasers; and the Catholics, the 
Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Congregation- 
alists, the Baptists, the Spiritualists, the Mormons, 
the Shakers, the Quakers, the Jews, the Campbell- 
ites, the infidels, the Christian Scientists, the Mind- 
Curists, the Faith-Curists, the train-robbers, the 
White Caps, the Moonshiners. And when a thou¬ 
sand able novels have been written, there you have 
the soul of the people, the life of the people, the 
speech of the people; and not anywhere else can 
these be had. And the shadings of character, man¬ 
ners, feelings, ambitions, will be infinite. 

The nature of a people is always of a similar shade in its 
vices and its virtues, in its frivolities and in its labor. It is 
this physiognomy which it is necessary to discover, and every 
document is good, from the hall of a casino to the church, from 
the foibles of a fashionable woman to the suggestions of a revo¬ 
lutionary leader. I am therefore quite sure that this American 
soul, the principal interest and the great object of my voyage, 
appears behind the records of Newport for those who choose 
to see it.— M . Paul Bourget. 

[The italics are mine.] It is a large contract 
which he has undertaken. “Records” is a pretty 
poor word there, but I think the use of it is due to 
hasty translation. In the original the word is fastes. 
I think M. Bourget meant to suggest that he ex¬ 
pected to find the great “American soul” secreted 
behind the ostentations of Newport; and that he was 
going to get it out and examine it, and generalize it, 
and psychologize it, and make it reveal to him its 
hidden vast mystery: “the nature of the people” of 

i54 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US^ 

the United States of America. We have been ac¬ 
cused of being a nation addicted to inventing wild 
schemes. I trust that we shall be allowed to retire 
to second place now. 

There isn’t a single human characteristic that can 
be safely labeled “American.” There isn’t a single 
human ambition, or religious trend, or drift of 
thought, or peculiarity of education, or code of 
principles, or breed of folly, or style of conversa¬ 
tion, or preference for a particular subject for dis¬ 
cussion, or form of legs or trunk or head or face or 
expression or complexion, or gait, or dress, or man¬ 
ners, or disposition, or any other human detail, 
inside or outside, that can rationally be generalized 
as “American.” 

Whenever you have found what seems to be an 
“American” peculiarity, you have only to cross a 
frontier or two, or go down or up in the social scale, 
and you perceive that it has disappeared. And you 
can cross the Atlantic and find it again. There 
may be a Newport religious drift, or sporting drift, 
or conversational style or complexion, or cut of face, 
but there are entire empires in America, north, 
south, east, and west, where you could not find 
your duplicates. It is the same with everything 
else which one might propose to call “American.” 
M. Bourget thinks he has found the American 
Coquette. If he had really found her he would also 
have found, I am sure, that she was not new, that 
she exists in other lands in the same forms, and 
with the same frivolous heart and the same ways 
and impulses, I think this because I have seen our 

i55 


MARK TWAIN 


coquette; I have seen her in life; better still, I have 
seen her in our novels, and seen her twin in foreign 
novels. I wish M. Bourget had seen ours. He 
thought he saw her. And so he applied his System 
to her. She was a Species. So he gathered a num¬ 
ber of samples of what seemed to be her, and put 
them under his glass, and divided them into groups 
which he calls “types,” and labeled them in his 
usual scientific way with “formulas”—brief, sharp 
descriptive flashes that make a person blink, some¬ 
times, they are so sudden and vivid. As a rule they 
are pretty far-fetched, but that is not an important 
matter; they surprise, they compel admiration, and 
I notice by some of the comments which his efforts 
have called forth that they deceive the unwary. 
Here are a few of the coquette variants which he has 
grouped and labeled: 

The Collector. 

The Equilibree. 

The Professional Beauty. 

The Bluffer. 

The Girl-Boy. 

If he had stopped with describing these characters 
we should have been obliged to believe that they 
exist; that they exist, and that he has seen them and 
spoken with them. But he did not stop there; he 
went further and furnished to us light-throwing 
samples of their behavior, and also light-throwing 
samples of their speeches. He entered those things 
in his note-book without suspicion, he takes them 
out and delivers them to the world with a candor 
and simplicity which show that he believed them 

156 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

genuine. They throw altogether too much light. 
They reveal to the native the origin of his find. I 
suppose he knows how he came to make that novel 
and captivating discovery, by this time. If he does 
not, any American can tell him—any American 
to whom he will show his anecdotes. It was “put 
up” on him, as we say. It was a jest—to be plain, 
it was a series of frauds. To my mind it was a poor 
sort of jest, witless and contemptible. The players 
of it have their reward, such as it is; they have 
exhibited the fact that whatever they may be they 
are not ladies. M. B our get did not discover a type 
of coquette; he merely discovered a type of prac¬ 
tical joker. One may say the type of practical 
joker, for these people are exactly alike all over the 
world. Their equipment is always the same: a 
vulgar mind, a puerile wit, a cruel disposition as a 
rule, and always the spirit of treachery. 

In his Chapter IV. M. Bourget has two or three 
columns gravely devoted to the collating and ex¬ 
amining and psychologizing of these sorry little 
frauds. One is not moved to laugh. There is nothing 
funny in the situation; it is only pathetic. The 
stranger gave those people his confidence, and they 
dishonorably treated him in return. 

But one must be allowed to suspect that M. 
Bourget was a little to blame himself. Even a 
practical joker has some little judgment. He has 
to exercise some degree of sagacity in selecting his 
prey if he would save himself from getting into 
trouble. In my time I have seldom seen such daring 
things marketed at any price as these conscienceless 

i57 


MARK TWAIN 


folk have worked off at par on this confiding ob¬ 
server. It compels the conviction that there was 
something about him that bred in those speculators 
a quite unusual sense of safety, and encouraged 
them to strain their powers in his behalf. They 
seem to have satisfied themselves that all he wanted 
was “significant” facts, and that he was not accus¬ 
tomed to examine the source whence they pro¬ 
ceeded. It is plain that there was a sort of con¬ 
spiracy against him almost from the start — a 
conspiracy to freight him up with all the strange 
extravagances those people’s decayed brains could 
invent. 

The lengths to which they went are next to 
incredible. They told him things which surely would 
have excited any one else’s suspicion, but they did 
not excite his. Consider this: 

There is not in all the United States an entirely nude statue. 

If an angel should come down and say such a 
thing about heaven, a reasonably cautious observer 
would take that angel’s number and inquire a little 
further before he added it to his catch. What does 
the present observer do? Adds it. Adds it at once. 
Adds it, and labels it with this innocent comment: 

This small fact is strangely significant. 

It does seem to me that this kind of observing is 
defective. 

Here is another curiosity which some liberal 
person made him a present of. I should think it 
ought to have disturbed the deep slumber of his 

158 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

suspicion a little, but it didn’t. It was a note from 
a fog-horn for strenuousness, it seems to me, but 
the doomed voyager did not catch it. If he had but 
caught it, it would have saved him from several 
disasters: 

If the American knows that you are traveling to take notes, 
he is interested in it, and at the same time rejoices in it, as in 
a tribute. 

Again, this is defective observation. It is human 
to like to be praised; one can even notice it in the 
French. But it is not human to like to be ridiculed, 
even when it comes in the form of a “tribute.” I 
think a little psychologizing ought to have come in 
there. Something like this: A dog does not like to 
be ridiculed, a redskin does not like to be ridiculed, 
a negro does not like to be ridiculed, a Chinaman 
does not like to be ridiculed; let us deduce from these 
significant facts this formula: the American’s grade 
being higher than these, and the chain of argument 
stretching unbroken all the way up to him, there 
is room for suspicion that the person who said the 
American likes to be ridiculed, and regards it as a 
tribute, is not a capable observer. 

I feel persuaded that in the matter of psycholo¬ 
gizing, a professional is too apt to yield to the fasci¬ 
nations of the loftier regions of that great art, to the 
neglect of its lowlier walks. Every now and then, 
at half-hour intervals, M. Bourget collects a hatful 
of airy inaccuracies and dissolves them in a panful 
of assorted abstractions, and runs the charge into 
a mold and turns you out a compact principle 
which will explain an American girl, or an Amer- 

i59 




MARK TWAIN 


ican woman, or why new people yearn for old things, 
or any other impossible riddle which a person wants 
answered. 

It seems to be conceded that there are a few 
human peculiarities that can be generalized and 
located here and there in the world and named by 
the name of the nation where they are found. I 
wonder what they are. Perhaps one of them is 
temperament. One speaks of French vivacity and 
German gravity and English stubbornness. There 
is no American temperament. The nearest that one 
can come at it is to say there are two—the com¬ 
posed Northern and the impetuous Southern; and 
both are found in other countries. Morals? Purity 
of women may fairly be called universal with us, 
but that is the case in some other countries. We 
have no monopoly of it; it cannot be named Amer¬ 
ican. I think that there is but a single specialty with 
us, only one thing that can be called by the wide 
name “ American. ” That is the national devotion 
to ice-water. All Germans drink beer, but the 
British nation drinks beer, too; so neither of those 
peoples is the beer-drinking nation. I suppose we 
do stand alone in having a drink that nobody likes 
but ourselves. When we have been a month in 
Europe we lose our craving for it, and we finally 
tell the hotel folk that they needn’t provide it any 
more. Yet we hardly touch our native shore again, 
winter or summer, before we are eager for it. The 
reasons for this state of things have not been psychol¬ 
ogized yet. I drop the hint and say no more. 

It is my belief that there are some “national” 

160 


\ 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

traits and things scattered about the world that are 
„ mere superstitions, frauds that have lived so long 
that they have the solid look of facts. One of them 
is the dogma that the French are the only chaste 
people in the world. Ever since I arrived in France 
this last time I have been accumulating doubts about 
that; and before I leave this sunny land again I will 
gather in a few random statistics and psychologize 
the plausibilities out of it. If people are to come 
over to America and find fault with our girls and 
our women, and psychologize every little thing they 
do, and try to teach them how to behave, and how 
to cultivate themselves up to where one cannot tell 
them from the French model, I intend to find out 
whether those missionaries are qualified or not. A 
nation ought always to examine into this detail 
before engaging the teacher for good. This last one 
has let fall a remark which renewed those doubts of 
mine when I read it: 

In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we find applied 
to arts and luxury, and to debauchery, all the powers and all 
the weaknesses of the French soul. 

You see, it amounts to a trade with the French 
soul; a profession; a science; the serious business of 
life, so to speak, in our high Parisian existence. I 
do not quite like the look of it. I question if it can 
be taught with profit in our country, except, of 
course, to those pathetic, neglected minds that are 
waiting there so yearningly for the education which 
M. Bourget is going to furnish them from the serene 
summits of our high Parisian life. 


MARK TWAIN 


I spoke a moment ago of the existence of some 
superstitions that have been parading the world as 
facts this long time. For instance, consider the 
Dollar. The world seems to think that the love of 
money is *‘American”; and that the mad desire to 
get suddenly rich is ‘‘American.” I believe that 
. both of these things are merely and broadly human, 
not American monopolies at all. The love of money 
is natural to all nations, for money is a good and 
strong friend. I think that this love has existed 
everywhere, ever since the Bible called it the root 
of all evil. 

I think that the reason why we Americans seem 
to be so addicted to trying to get rich suddenly is 
merely because the opportunity to make promising 
efforts in that direction has offered itself to us with 
a frequency out of all proportion to the European 
experience. For eighty years this opportunity has 
been offering itself in one new town or region after 
another straight westward, step by step, all the way 
from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. When a 
mechanic could buy ten town lots on tolerably long 
credit for ten months’ savings out of his wages, and 
reasonably expect to sell them in a couple of years 
for ten times what he gave for them, it was human 
for him to try the venture, and he did it no matter 
what his nationality was. He would have done it in 
Europe or China if he had had the same chance. 

In the flush times in the silver regions a cook or 
any other humble worker stood a very good chance 
to get rich out of a trifle of money risked in a stock 
deal; and that person promptly took that risk, no 

162 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

matter what his or her nationality might be. I was 
there, and saw it. 

But these opportunities have not been plenty in 
our Southern states; so there you have a prodigious 
region where the rush for sudden wealth is almost an 
unknown thing—and has been, from the beginning. 

Europe has offered few opportunities for poor 
Tom, Dick, and Harry; but when she has offered 
one, there has been no noticeable difference between 
European eagerness and American. England saw 
this in the wild days of the Railroad King; France 
saw it in 1720—time of Law and the Mississippi 
Bubble. I am sure I have never seen in the gold 
and silver mines any madness, fury, frenzy to get 
suddenly rich which was even remotely comparable 
to that which raged in France in the Bubble day. 
If I had a cyclopedia here I could turn to that 
memorable case, and satisfy nearly anybody that 
the hunger for the sudden dollar is no more “Ameri¬ 
can” than it is French. And if I could furnish an 
American opportunity to staid Germany, I think I 
could wake her up like a house afire. 

But I must return to the Generalizations, Psychol- 
ogizings, Deductions. When M. Bourget is ex¬ 
ploiting these arts, it is then that he is peculiarly and 
particularly himself. His ways are wholly original 
when he encounters a trait or a custom which is new 
to him. Another person would merely examine the 
find, verify it, estimate its value, and let it go; but 
that is not sufficient for M. Bourget: he always 
wants to know why that thing exists, he wants to 
know how it came to happen; and he will not let go 

163 


MARK TWAIN 


of it until he has found out. And in every instance 
he will find that reason where no one but himself 
would have thought of looking for it. He does not 
seem to care for a reason that is not picturesquely 
located; one might almost say picturesquely and 
impossibly located. 

He found out that in America men do not try to 
hunt down young married women. At once, as 
usual, he wanted to know why. Any one could have 
told him. He could have divined it by the lights 
thrown by the novels of the country. But no, he 
preferred to find out for himself. He has a trustful¬ 
ness as regards men and facts which is fine and 
unusual; he is not particular about the source of a 
fact, he is not particular about the character and 
standing of the fact itself; but when it comes to 
pounding out the reason for the existence of the fact, 
he will trust no one but himself. 

In the present instance here was his fact: American 
young married women are not pursued by the cor¬ 
rupter; and here was the question: What is it that 
protects her? 

It seems quite unlikely that that problem could 
have offered difficulties to any but a trained philoso¬ 
pher. Nearly any person would have said to M. 
Bourget: “Oh, that is very simple. It is very 
seldom in America that a marriage is made on a 
commercial basis; our marriages, from the begin¬ 
ning, have been made for love; and where love is 
there is no room for the corrupter.” 

Now, it is interesting to see the formidable way in 
which M. Bourget went at that poor, humble little 

164 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 


thing. He moved upon it in column—three col¬ 
umns—and with artillery. 

“Two reasons of a very different kind explain”— 
that fact 

And now that I have got so far, I am almost afraid 
to say what his two reasons are, lest I be charged 
with inventing them. But I will not retreat now; I 
will condense them and print them, giving my word 
that I am honest and not trying to deceive any one. 

1. Young married women are protected from the 
approaches of the seducer in New England and 
vicinity by the diluted remains of a prudence created 
by a Puritan law of two hundred years ago, which 
for a while punished adultery with death. 

2. And young married women of the other forty 
or fifty states are protected by laws which afford 
extraordinary facilities for divorce. 

If I have not lost my mind I have accurately con¬ 
veyed those two Vesuvian irruptions of philosophy. 
But the reader can consult Chapter IV. of Outre-Mer, 
and decide for himself. Let us examine this para¬ 
lyzing Deduction or Explanation by the light of a 
few sane facts. 

1. This universality of “protection” has existed 
in our country from the beginning; before the death- 
penalty existed in New England, and during all the 
generations that have dragged by since it was annulled. 

2. Extraordinary facilities for divorce are of such 
recent creation that any middle-aged American can 
remember a time when such things had not yet been 
thought of. 

Let us suppose that the first easy divorce law went 

165 



MARK TWAIN 


into effect forty years ago, and got noised around and 
fairly started in business thirty-five years ago, when 
we had, say, 25,000,000 of white population. Let us 
suppose that among 5,000,000 of them the young 
married women were “protected” by the surviving 
shudder of that ancient Puritan scare—what is M. 
Bourget going to do about those who lived among 
the 20,000,000? They were clean in their morals, 
they were pure, yet there was no easy divorce law 
to protect them. 

Awhile ago I said that M. Bourget’s method of 
truth-seeking—hunting for it in out-of-the-way 
places—was new; but that was an error. I remem¬ 
ber that when Leverrier discovered the Milky Way, 
he and the other astronomers began to theorize 
about it in substantially the same fashion which M. 
Bourget employs in his reasonings about American 
social facts and their origin. Leverrier advanced the • 
hypothesis that the Milky Way was caused by 
gaseous protoplasmic emanations from the field of 
Waterloo, which, ascending to an altitude determin¬ 
able by their own specific gravity, became luminous 
through the development and exposure—by the 
natural processes of animal decay—of the phosphorus 
contained in them. 

This theory was warmly complimented by Ptolemy, 
who, however, after much thought and research, 
decided that he could not accept it as final. His 
own theory was that the Milky Way was an emi¬ 
gration of lightning-bugs; and he supported and 
reinforced this theorem by the well-known fact that 
the locusts do like that in Egypt. 

166 




WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

Giordano Bruno also was outspoken in his praises 
of Leverrier’s important contribution to astronomical 
science, and was at first inclined to regard it as con¬ 
clusive; but later, conceiving it to be erroneous, he 
pronounced against it, and advanced the hypothesis 
that the Milky Way was a detachment or corps of 
stars which became arrested and held in suspenso 
suspensorum by refraction of gravitation while 
the march to join their several constellations; a 
proposition for which he was afterward burned at 
the stake in Jacksonville, Illinois. 

These were all brilliant and picturesque theories, 
and each was received with enthusiasm by the scien¬ 
tific world; but when a New England farmer, who 
was not a thinker, but only a plain sort of person 
who tried to account for large facts in simple ways, 
came out with the opinion that the Milky Way was 
just common, ordinary stars, and was put where 
it was because God “wanted to hev it so,” the ad¬ 
mirable idea fell perfectly flat. 

As a literary artist, M. Bourget is as fresh and 
striking as he is as a scientific one. He says, 
“Above all, I do not believe much in anecdotes.” 
Why? “In history they are all false’’—a sufficiently 
broad statement—“in literature all libelous”—also 
a sufficiently sweeping statement, coming from a 
critic who notes that we are a people who are pecu¬ 
liarly extravagant in our language—“and when it is 
a matter of social life, almost all biased.” It seems 
to amount to stultification, almost. He has built 
two or three breeds of American coquettes out of 
anecdotes—mainly “biased” ones, I suppose; and, 
12 167 



MARK TWAIN 


as they occur “in literature,” furnished by his pen, 
they must be “all libelous.” Or did he mean not 
in literature or anecdotes about literature or liter¬ 
ary people? I am not able to answer that. Perhaps 
the original would be clearer, but I have only the 
translation of this instalment by me. I think the 
remark had an intention; also that this intention 
was booked for the trip; but that either in the hurry 
of the remark’s departure it got left, or in the con¬ 
fusion of changing cars at the translator’s frontier it 
got side-tracked. 

“But on the other hand I believe in statistics; 
and those on divorces appear to me to be most con¬ 
clusive.” And he sets himself the task of explain¬ 
ing—in a couple of columns—the process by which 
Easy-Divorce conceived, invented, originated, devel¬ 
oped, and perfected an empire-embracing condition 
of sexual purity in the States. In forty years. No, 
he doesn’t state the interval. With all his passion 
for statistics he forgot to ask now long it took to 
produce this gigantic miracle. 

I have followed his pleasant but devious trail 
through those columns, but I was not able to get 
hold of his argument and find out what it was. I 
was not even able to find out where it left off. It 
seemed to gradually dissolve and flow off into other 
matters. I followed it with interest, for I was 
anxious to learn how easy-divorce eradicated adul¬ 
tery in America, but I was disappointed; I have no 
idea yet how it did it. I only know it didn’t. But 
that is not valuable; I knew it before. 

Well, humor is the great thing, the saving thing, 

168 


WHAT BOURGET THINKS OF US 

after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses 
yield, all our irritations and resentments flit away, 
and a sunny spirit takes their place. And so, when 
M. Bourget said that bright thing about our grand¬ 
fathers, I broke all up. I remember exploding its 
American countermine once, under that grand hero, 
Napoleon. He was only First Consul then, and I 
was Consul-General—for the United States, of 
course; but we were very intimate, notwithstanding 
the difference in rank, for I waived that. One day 
something offered the opening, and he said: 

“Well, General, I suppose life can never get 
entirely dull to an American, because whenever he 
can’t strike up any other way to put in his time he 
can always get away with a few years trying to find 
out who his grandfather was!” 

I fairly shouted, for I had never heard it sound 
better; and then I was back at him as quick as a 
flash: 

“Right, your Excellency! But I reckon a French¬ 
man’s got his little stand-by for a dull time, too; 
because when all other interests fail he can turn in 
and see if he can’t find out who his father was!” 

Well, you should have heard him just whoop, and 
cackle, and carry on! He reached up and hit me 
one on the shoulder, and says: 

“Land, but it’s good! It’s im-mensely good! 
I’George, I never heard it said so good in my life 
before! Say it again.” 

So I said it again, and he said his again, and I 
said mine again, and then he did, and then I did, 
and then he did, and we kept on doing it, and doing 
12 169 


1 




MARK TWAIN 


it, and I never had such a good time, and he said the 
same. In my opinion there isn’t anything that is 
as killing as one of those dear old. ripe pensioners 
if you know how to snatch it out in a kind of a 
fresh sort of original way. 

But I wish M. Bourget had read more of our 
novels before he came. It is the only way to thor¬ 
oughly understand a people. When I found I war¬ 
coming to Paris, I read La Terre. 


A LITTLE NOTE TO M. PAUL 

BOURGET 


[The preceding squib was assailed in The North American 
Review in an article entitled “Mark Twain and Paul Bourget,” 
by Max O’Rell. The following little note is a Rejoinder to 
that article. It is possible that the position assumed here—that 
M. Bourget dictated the O’Rell article himself—is untenable.] 

Y OU have every right, my dear M. Bourget, to 
retort upon me by dictation, if you prefer that 
method to writing at me with your pen; but if I 
may say it without hurt—and certainly I mean no 
offense—I believe you would have acquitted your¬ 
self better with the pen. With the pen you are at 
home; it is your natural weapon; you use it with 
grace, eloquence, charm, persuasiveness, when men 
are to be convinced, and with formidable effect when 
they have earned a castigation. But I am sure I see 
signs in the above article that you are either unac¬ 
customed to dictating or are out of practice. If you 
will reread it you will notice, yourself, that it lacks 
definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks co¬ 
herence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that 
it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that 
it loses itself early and does not find itself any more. 
There are some other defects, as you will notice, but 
I think I have named the main ones. I feel sure that 
they are all due to your lack of practice in dictating. 



r 


MARK TWAIN 


Inasmuch as you had not signed it I had the im¬ 
pression at first that you had not dictated it. But 
only for a moment. Certain quite simple and defi¬ 
nite facts reminded me that the article had to come 
from you, for the reason that it could not come from 
any one else without a specific invitation from you 
or from me. I mean, it could not except as an in¬ 
trusion, a transgression of the law which forbids 
strangers to mix into a private dispute between 
friends, unasked. 

Those simple and definite facts were these: I had 
published an article in this magazine, with you for 
my subject; just you yourself; I stuck strictly to that 
one subject, and did not interlard any other. No 
one, of course, could call me to account but you 
alone, or your authorized representative. I asked 
some questions—asked them of myself. I answered 
them myself. My article was thirteen pages long, 
and all devoted to you; devoted to you, and divided 
up in this way: one page of guesses as to what sub¬ 
jects you would instruct us in, as teacher; one page 
of doubts as to the effectiveness of your method of 
examining us and our ways; two or three pages of 
criticism of your method, and of certain results 
which it furnished you; two or three pages of at¬ 
tempts to show the justness of these same criticisms; 
half a dozen pages made up of slight fault-findings 
with certain minor details of your literary work¬ 
manship, of extracts from your Outre-Mer and com¬ 
ments upon them; then I closed with an anecdote. 
I repeat—for certain reasons—that I closed with an 
a necdote. 



172 



NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 

When I was asked by this magazine if I wished to 
“answer” a “reply*’ to that article of mine, I said 
“yes,” and waited in Paris for the proof-sheets of 
the “reply” to come. I already knew, by the 
cablegram, that the “reply” would not be signed by 
you, but upon reflection I knew it would be dictated 
by you, because no volunteer would feel himself at 
liberty to assume your championship in a private 
dispute, unasked, in view of the fact that you are 
quite well able to take care of your matters of that 
sort yourself and are not in need of any one’s help. 
No, a volunteer could not make such a venture. It 
would be too immodest. Also too gratuitously 
generous. And a shade too self-sufficient. No, he 
could not venture it. It would look too much like 
anxiety to get in at a feast where no plate had been 
provided for him. In fact he could not get in at 
all, except by the back way, and with a false key; 
that is to say, a pretext—a pretext invented for the 
occasion by putting into my mouth words which I 
did not use, and by wresting sayings of mine from 
their plain and true meaning. Would he resort to 
methods like those to get in? No; there are no 
people of that kind. So then I knew for a certainty 
that you dictated the Reply yourself. I knew you 
did it to save yourself manual labor. 

And you had the right, as I have already said; 
and I am content—perfectly content. Yet it would 
have been little trouble to you, and a great kindness 
to me, if you had written your Reply all out with 
your own capable hand. 

Because then it would have replied—and that is 

i73 


MARK TWAIN 


really what a Reply is for. Broadly speaking, its 
function is to refute—as you will easily concede. 
That leaves something for the other person to take 
hold of: he has a chance to reply to the Reply, he 
has a chance to refute the refutation. This would 
have happened if you had written it out instead of 
dictating. Dictating is nearly sure to unconcentrate 
the dictator’s mind, when he is out of practice, con¬ 
fuse him, and betray him into using one set of 
literary rules when he ought to use a quite different 
set. Often it betrays him into employing the Rules 
for Conversation between a Shouter and a 
Deaf Person —as in the present case—when he 
ought to employ the Rules for Conducting Dis¬ 
cussion with a Fault-Finder. The great founda¬ 
tion-rule and basic principle of discussion with a 
fault-finder is relevancy and concentration upon the 
subject; whereas the great foundation-rule and basic 
principle governing conversation between a shouter 
and a deaf person is irrelevancy and persistent 
desertion of the topic in hand. If I may be allowed 
to illustrate by quoting example IV., section 7, 
from chapter ix of “Revised Rules for Conducting 
Conversation between a Shouter and a Deaf Per¬ 
son,” it will assist us in getting a clear idea of the 
difference between the two sets of rules: 

Shouter. Did you say his name is WETHERBY? 

Deaf Person. Change? Yes, I think it will, 
Though if it should clear off I— 

Shouter. It’s his NAME I want—his NAME. 

Deaf Person. Maybe so, maybe so; but it will 
only be a shower, I think. 

174 




NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 

Shouter. No, no, no! — you have quite misun- 
derSTOODme. If— 

Deaf Person. Ah! GOOD morning; I am sorry 
you must go. But call again, and let me continue 
to be of assistance to you in every way I can. 

You see it is a perfect kodak of the article you 
have dictated. It is really curious and interesting 
when you come to compare it with yours; in detail, 
with my former article to which it is a Reply in 
your hand. I talk twelve pages about your Ameri¬ 
can instruction projects, and your doubtful scientific 
system, and your painstaking classification of non¬ 
existent things, and your diligence and zeal and sin¬ 
cerity, and your disloyal attitude toward anecdotes, 
and your undue reverence for unsafe statistics and 
for facts that lack a pedigree; and you turn around 
and come back at me with eight pages of weather. 

I do not see how a person can act so. It is good 
of you to repeat, with change of language, in the 
bulk of your rejoinder, so much of my own article, 
and adopt my sentiments, and make them over, 
and put new buttons on; and I like the compliment, 
and am frank to say so; but agreeing with a person 
cripples controversy and ought not to be allowed. 
It is weather; and of almost the worst sort. It 
pleases me greatly to hear you discourse with such 
approval and expansiveness upon my text: 

“A foreigner can photograph the exteriors of a 
nation, but I think that is as far as he can get. I 
think that no foreigner can report its interior ;” 1 

*And you say: “A man of average intelligence, who has passed 
six months among a people, cannot express opinions that am worth 

175 


MARK TWAIN 


which is a quite clear way of saying that a foreigner’s 
report is only valuable when it restricts itself to 
impressions. It pleases me to have you follow my 
lead in that glowing way, but it leaves me nothing 
to combat. You should give me something to deny 
and refute; I would do as much for you. 

It pleases me to have you playfully warn the 
public against taking one of your books seriously . 1 
Because I used to do that cunning thing myself in 
earlier days. I did it in a prefatory note to a book 
of mine called Tom Sawyer. 

NOTICE 

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be 
prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be 
banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. 

By Order of the Author, 

Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance. 

The kernel is the same in both prefaces, you 
see—the public must not take us too seriously. If 
we remove that kernel we remove the life-principle, 
and the preface is a corpse. Yes, it pleases me to 
have you use that idea, for it is a high compliment. 
But it leaves me nothing to combat; and that is 
damage to me. 

jotting down, but he can form impressions that are worth repeating. 
For my part, I think that foreigners’ impressions are more interesting 
than native opinions. After all, such impressions merely mean ‘ how 
the country struck the foreigner.’” 

J When I published Jonathan and His Continent, I wrote in a 
preface addressed to Jonathan: “If ever you should insist on seeing 
in this little volume a serious study of your country and of your 
countrymen, I warn you that your world-wide fame for humor will 
be exploded.” 



NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 

Am I seeming to say that your Reply is not a 
reply at all, M. Bourget? If so, I must modify 
that; it is too sweeping. For you have furnished a 
general answer to my inquiry as to what France— 
through you—can teach us . 1 It is a good answer. 
It relates to manners, customs, and morals—three 
things concerning which we can never have ex¬ 
haustive and determinate statistics, and so the ver¬ 
dicts delivered upon them must always lack con¬ 
clusiveness and be subject to revision; but you have 
stated the truth, possibly, as nearly as any one 
could do it, in the circumstances. But why did you 
choose a detail of my question which could be an¬ 
swered only with vague hearsay evidence, and go 


I “What could France teach America?” exclaims Mark Twain. 
France can teach America all the higher pursuits of life, and there 
is more artistic feeling and refinement in a street of French working¬ 
men than in many avenues inhabited by American millionaires. She 
can teach her, not perhaps how to work, but how to rest, how to 
live, how to be happy. She can teach her that the aim of life is not 
money-making, but that money-making is only a means to obtain 
an end. She can teach her that wives are not expensive toys, but 
useful partners, friends, and confidants, who should always keep 
men under their wholesome influence by their diplomacy, their tact, 
their common sense, without bumptiousness. These qualities, 
added to the highest standard of morality (not angular and morose, 
but cheerful morality), are conceded to Frenchwomen by whoever 
knows something of French life outside of the Paris boulevards, and 
Mark Twain’s ill-natured sneer cannot even so much as stain them. 

I might tell Mark Twain that in France a man who was seen tipsy 
in his club would immediately see his name canceled from member¬ 
ship. A man who had settled his fortune on his wife to-avoid 
meeting his creditors would be refused admission into any decent 
society. Many a Frenchman has blown his brains out rather than 
declare himself a bankrupt. Now would Mark Twain remark to 
this: “An American is not such a fool: when a creditor stands in his 
way he closes his doors, and reopens them the following day. When 
he has been a bankrupt three times he can retire from business”? 

U7 



MARK TWAIN 

right by one which could have been answered with 
deadly facts?—facts in everybody’s reach, facts 
which none can dispute. ' I asked what France could 
teach us about government. I laid myself pretty 
wide open, there; and I thought I was handsomely 
generous, too, when I did it. ^ France can teach 
us how to levy village and city taxes which distrib¬ 
ute the burden with a nearer approach to perfect 
fairness than is the case in any other land; and she 
can teach us the wisest and surest system of col¬ 
lecting them that exists. She can teach us how to 
elect a President in a sane way; and also how to do 
it without throwing the country into earthquakes 
and convulsions that cripple and embarrass business, 
stir up party hatred in the hearts of men, and make 
peaceful people wish the term extended to thirty 
years. France can teach us—but enough of that 
part of the question. And what else can France 
teach us? She can teach us all the fine arts—and 
does. She throws open her hospitable art acade¬ 
mies, and says to us, "Come”—and we come, 
troops and troops of our young and gifted; and she 
sets over us the ablest masters in the world and 
bearing the greatest names; and she teaches us all 
that we are capable of learning, and persuades us 
and encourages us with prizes and honors, much 
as if we were somehow children of her own; and 
when this noble education is finished and we are 
ready to carry it home and spread its gracious 
ministries abroad over our nation, and we come 
with homage and gratitude and ask France for the 
bill —there is nothing to pay. And in return for this 

178 


NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 


imperial generosity, what does America do? She 
charges a duty on French works of art! 

I wish I had your end of this dispute; I should 
have something worth talking about. If you would 
only furnish me something to argue, something to 
refute—but you persistently won’t. You leave 
good chances unutilized and spend your strength 
in proving and establishing unimportant things. 
For instance, you have proven and established these 
eight facts here following—a good score as to num¬ 
ber, but not worth wfhile: 

Mark Twain is— 

1. “Insulting.” 

2. (Sarcastically speaking) “This refined humor¬ 
ist.” 

3. Prefers the manure-pile to the violets. 

4. Has uttered “an ill-natured sneer.” 

5. Is “nasty.” 

6. Needs a “lesson in politeness and good man¬ 
ners.” 

7. Has published a “nasty article.” 

8. Has made remarks “unworthy of a gentle¬ 
man.” 1 These are all true, but really they are not 


1 “It is more funny than his [Mark Twain’s] anecdote, and would 
have been less insulting.” 

A quoted remark of mine “is a gross insult to a nation friendly 
to America.” 

“He has read La Terre , this refined humorist.” 

“When Mark Twain visits a garden ... he goes in the far-away 
corner where the soil is prepared.” 

“Mark Twain’s ill-natured sneer cannot so much as stain them” 
(the Frenchwomen). 

“When he [Mark Twain] takes his revenge he is unkind, unfair, 
bitter, nasty.” 


179 


MARK TWAIN 


valuable; no one cares much for such finds. In 
our American magazines we recognize this and sup¬ 
press them. We avoid naming them. American 
writers never allow themselves to name them. It 
would look as if they were in a temper, and we hold 
that exhibitions of temper in public are not good 
form—except in the very young and inexperienced. 
And even if we had the disposition to name them, 
in order to fill up a gap when we were short of ideas 
and arguments, our magazines would not allow us to 
do it, because they think that such words sully their 
pages. This present magazine is particularly stren¬ 
uous about it. Its note to me announcing the for¬ 
warding of your proof-sheets to France closed thus 
—for your protection: 

“It is needless to ask you to avoid anything that 
he might consider as personal .” 

It was well enough, as a measure of precaution, 
but really it was not needed. You can trust me im¬ 
plicitly, M. Bourget; I shall never call you any 
names in print which I should be ashamed to call 
you with your unoffending and dearest ones present. 

Indeed, we are reserved, and particular in America 
to a degree which you would consider exaggerated. 
For instance, we should not write notes like that one 
of yours to a lady for a small fault—or a large 
one. 1 We should not think it kind. No matter 

“But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark,” etc. 

“Mark might certainly have derived from it [M. Bourget’s book] 
a lesson in politeness and good manners.” 

A quoted remark of mine is “unworthy of a gentleman.” 

1 When M. Paul Bourget indulges in a little chaffing at the expense, 
of the Americans, “who can always get away with a few years’ 

180 



NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 


how much we might have associated with kings and 
nobilities, we should not think it right to crush her 
with it and make her ashamed of her lowlier walk in 

trying to find out who their grandfathers were,’ he merely makes 
an allusion to an American foible; but, forsooth, what a kind man, 
what a humorist Mark Twain is when he retorts by calling France 
a nation of bastards! How the Americans of culture and refinement 
will admire him for thus speaking in their name! 

Snobbery. ... I could give Mark Twain an example of the 
American specimen. It is a piquant story. I never published it 
because I feared my readers might think that I was giving them 
a typical illustration of American character instead of a rare ex¬ 
ception. 

I was once booked by my manager to give a causerie in the drawing¬ 
room of a New York millionaire. I accepted with reluctance. I do 
not like private engagements. At five o’clock on the day the 
causerie was to be given, the lady sent to my manager to say that 
she w T ould expect me to arrive at nine o’clock and to speak for 
about an hour. Then she wrote a postcript. Many women are 
unfortunate there. Their minds are full of afterthoughts, and the 
most important part of their letters is generally to be found after 
their signature. This lady’s P.S. ran thus: “I suppose he will not 
expect to be entertained after the lecture.” 

I fairly shouted, as Mark Twain would say, and then, indulging 
myself in a bit of snobbishness, I w r as back at her as quick as a 
flash— 

“Dear Madam: As a literary man of some reputation, I have 
many times had the pleasure of being entertained by the members 
of the old aristocracy of France. I have also many times had the 
pleasure of being entertained by the members of the old aristocracy 
of England. If it may interest you, I can even tell you that I have 
several times had the honor of being entertained by royalty; but 
my ambition has never been so wild as to expect that one day I 
might be entertained by the aristocracy of New York. No, I do 
not expect to be entertained by you, nor do I want you to expect me 
to entertain you and your friends to-night, for I decline to keep the 
engagement.” 

Now, I could fill a book on America with reminiscences of this 
sort, adding a few chapters on bosses and boodlers, on New York 
chronique scandaleuse, on the tenement houses of the large cities, 
on the gambling-hells of Denver, and the dens of San Francisco, and 
what not! But not even your nasty article on my country, Mark, 
will make me do it. 

181 


MARK TWAIN 


life; for we have a saying, “Who humiliates my 
mother includes his own.” 

Do I seriously imagine you to be the author of 
that strange letter, M. Bourget? Indeed I do not. 
I believe it to have been surreptitiously inserted by 
your amanuensis when your back was turned. I 
think he did it with a good motive, expecting it to 
add force and piquancy to your article, but it does 
not reflect your nature, and I know it will grieve 
you when you see it. I also think he interlarded 
many other things which you will disapprove of 
when you see them. I am certain that all the harsh 
names discharged at me come from him, not you. 
No doubt you could have proved me entitled to 
them with as little trouble as it has cost him to do it, 
but it would have been your disposition to hunt 
game of a higher quality. 

Why, I even doubt if it is you who furnish me all 
that excellent information about Balzac and those 
others. 1 All this in simple justice to you—and to 


1,1 Now the style of M. Bourget and many other French writers 
is apparently a closed letter to Mark Twain; but let us leave that 
alone. Has he read Erckmann-Chatrian, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, 
Edmond About, Cherbuliez, Renan? Has he read Gustave Droz’s 
Monsieur , Madame, et Bebe, and those books which leave for a long 
time a perfume about you? Has he read the novels of Alexandre 
Dumas, Eugene Sue, George Sand, and Balzac? Has he read Victor 
Hugo’s Les Miserables and Notre Dame de Paris? Has he read or 
heard the plays of Sandeau, Augier, Dumas, and Sardou, the works 
of those Titans of modern literature, whose names will be household 
words all over the world for hundreds of years to come? He has 
read La Terre —this kind-hearted, refined humorist! When Mark 
Twain visits a garden does he smell the violets, the roses, the jasmine 
or the honeysuckle? No, he goes in the far-away corner where the 
soil is prepared. Hear what he says: ‘I wish M, Paul Bourget had 

j8s 


NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 


me; for, to gravely accept those interlardings as 
yours would be to wrong your head and heart, and 
at the same time convict myself of being equipped 
with a vacancy where my penetration ought to be 
lodged. 

And now finally I must uncover the secret pain, 
the wee sore from which the Reply grew— the anec¬ 
dote which closed my recent article —and consider 
how it is that this pimple has spread to these can¬ 
cerous dimensions. If any but you had dictated 
the Reply, M. Bourget, I would know that that 
anecdote was twisted around and its intention mag¬ 
nified some hundreds of times, in order that it might 
be used as a pretext to creep in the back way. But 
I accuse you of nothing—nothing but error. When 
you say that I “retort by calling France a nation of 
bastards,” it is an error. And not a small one, but 
a large one. I made no such remark, nor anything 
resembling it. Moreover, the magazine would not 
have allowed me to use so gross a word as that. 

You told an anecdote. A funny one—I admit 
that. It hit a foible of our American aristocracy, 
and it stung me—I admit that; it stung me sharp¬ 
ly. It was like this: You found some ancient 
portraits of French kings in the gallery of one of our 
aristocracy, and you said: 

“He has the Grand Monarch, but where is the 
portrait of his grandfather?” That is, the Ameri¬ 
can aristocrat’s grandfather. 

read more of our novels before he came. It is the only way to 
thoroughly understand a people. When I found I was coming to 
Paris I read La Terre."' 

183 


13 







t 


MARK TWAIN 


Now that hits only a few of us, I grant—just the 
upper crust only—but it hits exceedingly hard. 

I wondered if there was any way of getting back 
at you. In one of your chapters I found this chance: 

“In our high Parisian existence, for instance, we 
find applied to arts and luxury, and to debauchery, 
all the powers and all the weaknesses of the French 
soul.” 

You see? Your “higher Parisian” class—not 
everybody, not the nation, but only the top crust of 
the nation —applies to debauchery all the powers of 
its soul. 

I argued to myself that that energy must produce 
results. So I built an anecdote out of your remark. 
In it I make Napoleon Bonaparte say to me—but 
see for yourself the anecdote (ingeniously clipped 
and curtailed) in paragraph eleven of your Reply . 1 

*So, I repeat, Mark Twain does not like M. Paul Bourget’s book. 
So long as he makes light fun of the great French writer he is at 
home, he is pleasant, he is the American humorist we know. When 
he takes his revenge (and where is the reason for taking a revenge?) 
he is unkind, unfair, bitter, nasty. 

For example: 

See his answer to a Frenchman who jokingly remarks to him: 

“I suppose life can never get entirely dull to an American, because 
whenever he can’t strike up any other way to put in his time, he can 
always get away with a few years trying to find out who his grand¬ 
father was.” 

Hear the answer: 

“I reckon a Frenchman’s got his little standby for a dull time, 
too; because when all other interests fail, he can turn in and see if 
he can’t find out who his father was.” 

* The first remark is a good-humored bit of chaffing on American 
snobbery. I may be utterly destitute of humor, but I call the 
second remark a gratuitous charge of immorality hurled at the 
French women—a remark unworthy of a man who has the ear of 
the public, unworthy of a gentleman, a gross insult to a nation 

184 


NOTE TO M. PAUL BOURGET 

Now, then, your anecdote about the grandfathers 
hurt me. Why? Because it had a point. It wouldn’t 
have hurt me if it hadn’t had point. You wouldn’t 
have wasted space on it if it hadn’t had point. 

My anecdote has hurt you. Why? Because it 
had point, I suppose. It wouldn’t have hurt you if 
it hadn’t had point. I judged from your remark 
about the diligence and industry of the high Parisian 
upper crust that it would have some point, but really 
I had no idea what a gold-mine I had struck. I 
never suspected that the point was going to stick 
into the entire nation; but of course you know your 
nation better than I do, and if you think it punctures 
them all, I have to yield to your judgment. But 
you are to blame, your own self. Your remark mis¬ 
led me. I supposed the industry was confined to 
that little unnumerous upper layer. 

Well, now that the unfortunate thing has been 
done, let us do what we can to undo it. There 
must be a way, M. Bourget, and I am willing to do 
anything that will help; for I am as sorry as you 
can be yourself. 

I will tell you what I think will be the very thing. 
We will swap anecdotes. I will take your anecdote 

friendly to America, a nation that helped Mark Twain’s ancestors 
in their struggle for liberty, a nation where to-day it is enough to 
say that you are American to see every door open wide to you. 

If Mark Twain was hard up in search of a French “chestnut,” I 
might have told him the following little anecdote. It is more 
funny than his, and would have been less insulting: Two little 
street boys are abusing each other. “Ah, hold your tongue,” says 
one, “you ain’t got no father.” 

“Ain’t got no father!” replied the other; “I’ve got more fathers 
than you.” 

185 





MARK TWAIN 


and you take mine. I will say to the dukes and 
counts and princes of the ancient nobility of France: 
“Ha, ha! You must have a pretty hard time trying 
to find out who your grandfathers were?” 

They will merely smile indifferently and not feel 
hurt, because they can trace their lineage back 
through centuries. 

And you will hurl mine at every individual in the 
American nation, saying: 

“And you must have a pretty hard time trying to 
find out who your fathers were.” They will merely 
smile indifferently, and not feel hurt, because they 
haven’t any difficulty in finding their fathers. 

Do you get the idea? The whole harm in the 
anecdotes is in the point , you see; and when we 
swap them around that way, they haven't any. 

That settles it perfectly and beautifully, and I am 
glad I thought of it. I am very glad indeed, M. 
Bourget; for it was just that little wee thing that 
caused the whole difficulty and made you dictate the 
Reply, and your amanuensis call me all those hard 
names which the magazines dislike so. And I did it 
all in fun, too, trying to cap your funny anecdote 
with another one—on the give-and-take principle, 
you know—which is American. I didn’t know 
that with the French it was all give and no take, and 
you didn’t tell me. But now that I have made 
everything comfortable again, and fixed both anec¬ 
dotes so they can never have any point any more, I 
know you will forgive me. 





THE INVALID’S STORY 


I SEEM sixty and married, but these effects are 
due to my condition and sufferings, for I am a 
bachelor, and only forty-one. It will be hard for 
you to believe that I, who am now but a shadow, 
was a hale, hearty man two short years ago—a man 
of iron, a very athlete!—yet such is the simple truth. 
But stranger still than this fact is the way in which 
I lost my health. I lost it through helping to take 
care of a box of guns on a two-hundred-mile railway 
journey one winter’s night. It is the actual truth, 
and I will tell you about it. 

I belong in Cleveland, Ohio. One winter’s night, 
two years ago, I reached home just after dark, in a 
driving snow-storm, and the first thing I heard when 
I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood 
friend and schoolmate, John B. Hackett, had died 
the day before, and that his last utterance had been 
a desire that I would take his remains home to his 
poor old father and mother in Wisconsin. I was 
greatly shocked and grieved, but there was no time to 
waste in emotions; I must start at once. I took the 
card, marked “Deacon Levi Hackett, Bethlehem, 
Wisconsin,” and hurried off through the whistling 
storm to the railway-station. Arrived there I found 
the long white-pine box which had been described to 

187 


MARK TWAIN 


me; I fastened the card to it with some tacks, saw 
it put safely aboard the express-car, and then ran 
into the eating-room to provide myself with a sand¬ 
wich and some cigars. When I returned, presently, 
there was my coffin-box back again , apparently, and 
a young fellow examining around it, with a card in 
his hands, and some tacks and a hammer! I was 
astonished and puzzled. He began to nail on his 
card, and I rushed out to the express-car, in a good 
deal of a state of mind, to ask for an explanation. 
But no—there was my box, all right, in the express- 
car; it hadn’t been disturbed. [The fact is that with¬ 
out my suspecting it a prodigious mistake had been 
made. I was carrying off a box of guns which that 
young fellow had come to the station to ship to a 
rifle company in Peoria, Illinois, and he had got my 
corpse!] Just then the conductor sang out “All 
aboard,” and I jumped into the express-car and got 
a comfortable seat on a bale of buckets. The ex¬ 
pressman was there, hard at work—a plain man of 
fifty, with a simple, honest, good-natured face, and 
a breezy, practical heartiness in his general style. 
As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the 
car and set a package of peculiarly mature and 
capable Limburger cheese on one end of my coffin- 
box—I mean my box of guns. That is to say, I 
know now that it was Limburger cheese, but at that 
time I never had heard of the article in my life, and 
of course was wholly ignorant of its character. 
Well, we sped through the wild night, the bitter 
storm raged on, a cheerless misery stole over me, my 
heart went down, down, down! The old express- 

188 


THE INVALID’S STORY 

man made a brisk remark or two aoout the tempest 
and the arctic weather, slammed his sliding doors 
to, and bolted them, closed his window down tight, 
and then went bustling around, here and there and 
yonder, setting things to rights, and all the time 
contentedly humming “Sweet By and By,” in a low 
tone, and flatting a good deal. Presently I began 
to detect a most evil and searching odor stealing 
about on the frozen air. This depressed my spirits 
still more, because of course I attributed it to my 
poor departed friend. There was something infinitely 
saddening about his calling himself to my remem¬ 
brance in this dumb, pathetic way, so it was hard to 
keep the tears back. Moreover, it distressed me on 
account of the old expressman, who, I was afraid, 
might notice it. However, he went humming tran¬ 
quilly on, and gave no sign; and for this I was 
grateful. Grateful, yes, but still uneasy; and soon 
I began to feel more and more uneasy every minute, 
for every minute that went by that odor thickened 
up the more, and got to be more and more gamey 
and hard to stand. Presently, having got things 
arranged to his satisfaction, the expressman got some 
wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove. 
This distressed me more than I can tell, for I could 
not but feel that it was a mistake. I was sure that 
the effect would be deleterious upon my poor de¬ 
parted friend. Thompson—the expressman’s name 
was Thompson, as I found out in the course of the 
night—now went poking around his car, stopping up 
whatever stray cracks he could find, remarking that 
it didn’t make any difference what kind of anight 

189 




MARK TWAIN 


it was outside, he calculated to make us comfort¬ 
able, anyway. I said nothing, but I believed he was 
not choosing the right way. Meantime he was 
humming to himself just as before; and meantime, 
too, the stove was getting hotter and hotter, and the 
place closer and closer. I felt myself growing pale 
and qualmish, but grieved in silence and said nothing. 
Soon I noticed that the “Sweet By and By” was 
gradually fading out; next it ceased altogether, and 
there was an ominous stillness. After a few moments 
Thompson said— 

“Pfew! I reckon it ain’t no cinnamon ’t I’ve 
loaded up thish-yer stove with!” 

He gasped once or twice, then moved toward the 
cof—gun-box, stood over that Limburger cheese 
part of a moment, then came back and sat down 
near me, looking a good deal impressed. After a 
contemplative pause, he said, indicating the box with 
a gesture— 

“Friend of yourn?” 

“Yes,” I said with a sigh. 

“He’s pretty ripe, ain't he!” 

Nothing further was said for perhaps a couple of 
minutes, each being busy with his own thoughts; 
then Thompson said, in a low, awed voice— 

“Sometimes it’s uncertain whether they’re really 
gone or not —seem gone, you know—body warm, 
joints limber—and so, although you think they’re 
gone, you don’t really know. I’ve had cases in my 
car. It’s perfectly awful, becuz you don’t know 
what minute they’ll rise up and look at you!” Then, 
after a pause, and slightly lifting his elbow toward 

190 



THE INVALID’S STORY 


the box,—“But he ain’t in no trance! No, sir, I go 
bail for him!” 

We sat some time, in meditative silence, listen¬ 
ing to the wind and the roar of the train; then 
Thompson said, with a good deal of feeling: 

“Well-a-well, we’ve all got to go, they ain’t no 
getting around it. Man that is born of woman is of 
few days and far between, as Scriptur’ says. Yes, 
you look at it any way you want to, it’s awful 
solemn and cur’us: they ain’t nobody can get around 
it; all's got to go—just everybody , as you may say. 
One day you’re hearty and strong”—here he scram¬ 
bled to his feet and broke a pane and stretched his 
nose out at it a moment or two, then sat down 
again while I struggled up and thrust my nose out 
at the same place, and this we kept on doing every 
now and then—“and next day he’s cut down like the 
grass, and the places which knowed him then knows 
him no more forever, as Scriptur’ says. Yes’ndeedy, 
it’s awful solemn and cur’us; but we’ve all got to 
go, one time or another; they ain’t no getting 
around it.” 

There was another long pause; then— 

“What did he die of?” 

I said I didn’t know. 

“How long has he ben dead?” 

It seemed judicious to enlarge the facts to fit the 
probabilities; so I said: 

“Two or three days.” 

But it did no good; for Thompson received it 
with an injured look which plainly said, “Two or 
three years, you mean.” Then he went right along, 

191 



MARK TWAIN 


placidly ignoring my statement, and gave his views 
at considerable length upon the unwisdom of putting 
off burials too long. Then he lounged off toward 
the box, stood a moment, then came back on a sharp 
trot and visited the broken pane, observing: 

“’Twould ’a’ ben a dum sight better, all around, 
if they’d started him along last summer.” 

Thompson sat down and buried his face in his red 
silk handkerchief, and began to slowly sway and 
rock his body like one who is doing his best to 
endure the almost unendurable. By this time the 
fragrance—if you may call it fragrance—was just 
about suffocating, as near as you can come at it. 
Thompson’s face was turning gray; I knew mine 
hadn’t any color left in it. By and by Thompson 
rested his forehead in his left hand, with his elbow 
on his knee, and sort of waved his red handkerchief 
toward the box with his other hand, and said: 

“I’ve carried a many a one of ’em—some of 
’em considerable overdue, too—but, lordy, he just 
lays over ’em all!—and does it easy. Cap, they 
was heliotrope to him!" 

This recognition of my poor friend gratified me, 
in spite of the sad circumstances, because it had so 
much the sound of a compliment. 

Pretty soon it was plain that something had got 
to be done. I suggested cigars. Thompson thought 
. it was a good idea. He said: 

“Likely it’ll modify him some.” 

We puffed gingerly along for a while, and tried 
hard to imagine that things were improved. But 
it wasn’t any use. Before very long, and without 

192 



THE INVALID’S STORY 


any consultation, both cigars were quietly dropped 
from our nerveless fingers at the same moment. 
Thompson said, with a sigh: 

“No, Cap, it don’t modify him worth a cent. 
Fact is, it makes him worse, becuz it appears to 
stir up his ambition. What do you reckon we better 
do, now?” 

I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had 
to be swallowing and swallowing all the time, and 
did not like to trust myself to speak. Thompson 
fell to maundering, in a desultory and low-spirited 
way, about the miserable experiences of this night; 
and he got to referring to my poor friend by various 
titles—sometimes military ones, sometimes civil 
ones; and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend’s 
effectiveness grew, Thompson promoted him ac¬ 
cordingly—gave him a bigger title. Finally he said: 

“I’ve got an idea. Suppos’n’ we buckle down to 
it and give the Colonel a bit of a shove toward 
t’other end of the car?—about ten foot, say. He 
wouldn’t have so much influence, then, don’t you 
reckon?” 

I said it was a good scheme. So we took in 
a good fresh breath at the broken pane, calculat¬ 
ing to hold it till we got through; then we went 
there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a 
grip on the box. Thompson nodded “All ready,” 
and then we threw ourselves forward with all our 
might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down 
with his nose on the cheese, and his breath got 
loose. He gagged and gasped, and floundered up 
and made a break for the door, pawing the air 

i93 



MARK TWAIN 


and saying hoarsely, “Don’t hender me!—gimme 
the road! I’m a-dying; gimme the road!” Out 
on the cold platform I sat down and held his head 
awhile, and he revived. Presently he said: 

“Do you reckon we started the Gen’rul any?” 

I said no; we hadn’t budged him. 

“Well, then, that idea’s up the flume. We got 
to think up something else. He’s suited wher’ he 
is, I reckon; and if that’s the way he feels about it, 
and has made up his mind that he don’t wish to be 
disturbed, you bet he’s a-going to have his own way 
in the business. Yes, better leave him right wher’ 
he is, long as he wants it so; becuz he holds all the 
trumps, don’t you know, and so it stands to reason 
that the man that lays out to alter his plans for him 
is going to get left.” 

But we couldn’t stay out there in that mad storm; 
we should have frozen to death. So we went in 
again and shut the door, and began to suffer once 
more and take turns at the break in the window. By 
and by, as we were starting away from a station 
where we had stopped a moment Thompson pranced 
in cheerily, and exclaimed: 

“We’re all right, now! I reckon we’ve got the 
Commodore this time. I judge I’ve got the stuff 
here that’ll take the tuck out of him.” 

It was carbolic acid. He had a carboy of it. Pie 
sprinkled it all around everywhere; in fact he 
drenched everything with it, rifle-box, cheese and all. 
Then we sat down, feeling pretty hopeful. But it 
wasn’t for long. You see the two perfumes began 
to mix, and then—well, pretty soon we made a 

IQd 

* 


THE INVALID’S STORY 


break for the door; and out there Thompson 
swabbed his face with his bandanna and said in a 
kind of disheartened way: 

“It ain’t no use. We can’t buck agin him. He 
just utilizes everything we put up to modify him with, 
and gives it his own flavor and plays it back on us. 
Why, Cap, don’t you know, it’s as much as a 
hundred times worse in there now than it was when 
he first got a-going. I never did see one of ’em 
warm up to his work so, and take such a dumnation 
interest in it. No, sir, I never did, as long as I’ve 
ben on the road; and I’ve carried a many a one of 
’em, as I was telling you.” 

We went in again after we were frozen pretty stiff; 
but my, we couldn’t stay in, now. So we just 
waltzed back and forth, freezing, and thawing, and 
stifling, by turns. In about an hour we stopped at 
another station; and as we left it Thompson came in 
with a bag, and said— 

“Cap, I’m a-going to chance him once more— 
just this once; and if we don’t fetch him this time, 
the thing for us to do, is to just throw up the sponge 
and withdraw from the canvass. That’s the way I 
put it up.” 

He had brought a lot of chicken feathers, and 
dried apples, and leaf tobacco, and rags, and old 
shoes, and sulphur, and asafetida, and one thing or 
another; and he piled them on a breadth of sheet iron 
in the middle of the floor, and set fire to them. 

When they got well started, I couldn’t see, myself, 
how even the corpse could stand it. All that went 
before was just simply poetry to that smell—but 

i95 




MARK TWAIN 


mind you, the original smell stood up out of it just 
as sublime as ever—fact is, these other smells just 
seemed to give it a better hold; and my, how rich 
it was! I didn’t make these reflections there—there 
wasn’t time—made them on the platform. And 
breaking for the platform, Thompson got suffocated 
and fell; and before I got him dragged out, which I 
did by the collar, I was mighty near gone myself. 
When we revived, Thompson said dejectedly: 

“We got to stay out here, Cap. We got to do it. 
They ain’t no other way. The Governor wants to 
travel alone, and he’s fixed so he can outvote us.” 

And presently he added: 

“And don’t you know, we’re pisoned. It’s our 
last trip, you can make up your mind to it. Typhoid 
fever is what’s going to come of this. I feel it 
a-coming right now. Yes, sir, we’re elected, just as 
sure as you’re bom.” 

We were taken from the platform an hour later, 
frozen and insensible, at the next station, and I went 
straight off into a virulent fever, and never knew 
anything again for three weeks. I found out, then, 
that I had spent that awful night with a harmless 
box of rifles and a lot of innocent cheese; but the 
news was too late to save me; imagination had done 
its work, and my health was permanently shattered; 
neither Bermuda nor any other land can ever bring 
it back to me. This is my last trip; I am on my way 
home to die. 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


I. THE GOVERNMENT IN THE FRYING-PAN 

H ERE in Vienna in these closing days of 1897 
one’s blood gets no chance to stagnate. The 
atmosphere is brimful of political electricity. All 
conversation is political; every man is a battery, 
with brushes overworn, and gives out blue sparks 
when you set him going on the common topic. 
Everybody has an opinion, and lets you have it 
frank and hot, and out of this multitude of coun¬ 
sel you get merely confusion and despair. For 
no one really understands this political situation, 
or can tell you what is going to be the outcome 
of it. 

Things have happened here recently which would 
set any country but Austria on fire from end to 
end, and upset the government to a certainty; but 
no one feels confident that such results will follow 
here. Here, apparently, one must wait and see 
what will happen, then he will know, and not be¬ 
fore; guessing is idle; guessing cannot help the 
matter. This is what the wise tell you; they all 
say it; they say it every day, and it is the sole de¬ 
tail upon which they all agree. 

There is some approach to agreement upon an- 

197 






MARK TWAIN 


other point: that there will be no revolution. Men 
say: “Look at our history—revolutions have not 
been in our line; and look at our political map 
—its construction is unfavorable to an organized 
uprising, and without unity what could a revolt 
accomplish? It is disunion which has held our 
empire together for centuries, and what it has 
done in the past it may continue to do now and 
in the future.” 

The most intelligible sketch I have encountered 
of this unintelligible arrangement of things was con¬ 
tributed to the Travelers Record by Mr. Forrest 
Morgan, of Hartford, three years ago. He says: 

The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is the patchwork quilt, the 
Midway Plaisance, the national chain-gang of Europe; a state 
that is not a nation but a collection of nations, some with national 
memories and aspirations and others without, some occupying 
distinct provinces almost purely their own, and others mixed 
with alien races, but each with a different language, and each 
mostly holding the others foreigners as much as if the link of a 
common government did not exist. Only one of its races even 
now comprises so much as one-fourth of the whole, and not an¬ 
other so much as one-sixth; and each has remained for ages as 
unchanged in isolation, however mingled together in locality, 
as globules of oil in water. There is nothing else in the modern 
world that is nearly like it, though there have been plenty in 
past ages; it seems unreal and impossible even though we know 
it is true; it violates all our feeling as to what a country should 
be in order to have a right to exist; and it seems as though it was 
too ramshackle to go on holding together any length of time. 
Yet it has survived, much in its present shape, two centuries 
of storms that have swept perfectly unified countries from 
existence and others that have brought it to the verge of ruin, 
has survived formidable European coalitions to dismember it, 
and has steadily gained force after each; forever changing in its 
exact make-up, losing in the West but gaining in the East, the 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

changes leave the structure as firm as ever, like the dropping 
off and adding on of logs in a raft, its mechanical union of 
pieces showing all the vitality of genuine national life. 

That seems to confirm and justify the prevalent 
Austrian faith that in this confusion of unrelated and 
irreconcilable elements, this condition of incurable 
disunion, there is strength—for the government. 
Nearly every day some one explains to me that a 
revolution would not succeed here. “It couldn’t, 
you know. Broadly speaking, all the nations in the 
empire hate the government—but they all hate each 
other, too, and with devoted and enthusiastic bitter¬ 
ness; no two of them can combine; the nation that 
rises must rise alone; then the others would joyfully 
join the government against her, and she would have 
just a fly’s chance against a combination of spiders. 
This government is entirely independent. It can go 
its own road, and do as it pleases; it has nothing to 
fear. In countries like England and America, where 
there is one tongue and the public interests are 
common, the government must take account of pub¬ 
lic opinion; but in Austria-Hungary there are nine¬ 
teen public opinions—one for each state. No—two 
or three for each state, since there are two or three 
nationalities in each. A government cannot satisfy 
all these public opinions; it can only go through 
the motions of trying. This government does that. 
It goes through the motions, and they do not 
succeed; but that does not worry the government 
much.” 

The next man will give you some further informa¬ 
tion. “The government has a policy—a wise one 

199 


14 





MARK TWAIN 


—and sticks steadily to it. This policy is— tran¬ 
quillity: keep this hive of excitable nations as quiet 
as possible; encourage them to amuse themselves 
with things less inflammatory than politics. To this 
end it furnishes them an abundance of Catholic 
priests to teach them to be docile and obedient, and 
to be diligent in acquiring ignorance about things 
here below, and knowledge about the kingdom of 
heaven, to whose historic delights they are going to 
add the charm of their society by and by; and fur¬ 
ther—to this same end—it cools off the newspapers 
every morning at five o’clock, whenever warm events 
are happening.” There is a censor of the press, and 
apparently he is always on duty and hard at work. 
A copy of each morning paper is brought to him at 
five o’clock. His official wagons wait at the doors 
of the newspaper offices and scud to him with the 
first copies that come from the press. His company 
of assistants read every line in these papers, and 
mark everything which seems to have a dangerous 
look; then he passes final judgment upon these 
markings. Two things conspire to give to the re¬ 
sults a capricious and unbalanced look: his assist¬ 
ants have diversified notions as to what is dangerous 
and what isn’t; he can’t get time to examine - their 
criticisms in much detail; and so sometimes the very 
same matter which is suppressed in one paper fails 
to be damned in another one, and gets published in 
full feather and unmodified. Then the paper in 
which it was suppressed blandly copies the forbidden 
matter into its evening edition—provokingly giving 
credit and detailing all the circumstances in cour- 


200 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


teous and inoffensive language—and of course the 
censor cannot say a word. 

Sometimes the censor sucks all the blood out of a 
newspaper and leaves it colorless and inane; some¬ 
times he leaves it undisturbed, and lets it talk out 
its opinions with a frankness and vigor hardly to be 
surpassed, I think, in the journals of any country. 
Apparently the censor sometimes revises his verdicts 
upon second thought, for several times lately he has 
suppressed journals after their issue and partial dis¬ 
tribution. The distributed copies are then sent for 
by the censor and destroyed. I have two of these, 
but at the time they were sent for I could not re¬ 
member what I had done with them. 

If the censor did his work before the morning 
edition was printed, he would be less of an incon¬ 
venience than he is; but of course the papers can¬ 
not wait many minutes after five o’clock to get his 
verdict; they might as well go out of business as do 
that; so they print, and take the chances. Then, 
if they get caught by a suppression, they must strike 
out the condemned matter and print the edition over 
again. That delays the issue several hours, and is 
expensive besides. The government gets the sup¬ 
pressed edition for nothing. If it bought it, that 
would be joyful, and would give great satisfaction. 
Also, the edition would be larger. Some of the 
papers do not replace the condemned paragraphs 
with other matter; they merely snatch them out 
and leave blanks behind—mourning blanks, marked 
“Confiscated .” 

The government discourages the dissemination of 
14 201 


MARK TWAIN 


newspaper information in other ways. For instance, 
it does not allow newspapers to be sold on the streets; 

therefore the newsboy is unknown in Vienna. And 

* 

there is a stamp duty of nearly a cent upon each 
copy of a newspaper’s issue. Every American paper 
that reaches me has a stamp upon it, which has been 
pasted there in the post-office or down-stairs in the 
hotel office; but no matter who put it there, I have 
to pay for it, and that is the main thing. Sometimes 
friends send me so many papers that it takes all I 
can earn that week to keep this government going. 

I must take passing notice of another point in the 
government’s measures for maintaining tranquillity. 
Everybody says it does not like to see any individual 
attain to commanding influence in the country, since 
such a man can become a disturber and an incon¬ 
venience. “We have as much talent as the other 
nations,” says the citizen, resignedly, and without 
bitterness, “but for the sake of the general good of 
the country we are discouraged from making it over- 
conspicuous; and not only discouraged, but tact¬ 
fully and skillfully prevented from doing it, if we 
show too much persistence. Consequently we have 
no renowned men; in centuries we have seldom pro¬ 
duced one—that is, seldom allowed one to produce 
himself. We can say to-day what no other nation 
of first importance in the family of Christian civili¬ 
zations can say: that there exists no Austrian who 
has made an enduring name for himself which is fa¬ 
miliar all around the globe.” 

Another helper toward tranquillity is the army. 
It is as pervasive as the atmosphere. It is every- 

202 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

where. All the mentioned creators, promoters, and 
preservers of the public tranquillity do their several 
shares in the quieting work. They make a restful 
and comfortable serenity and reposefulness. This is 
disturbed sometimes for a little while: a mob as¬ 
sembles to protest against something; it gets noisy 
—noisier—still noisier—-finally too noisy; then the 
persuasive soldiery come charging down upon it, 
and in a few minutes all is quiet again, and there is 
no mob. 

There is a Constitution and there is a Parliament. 
The House draws its membership of 425 deputies 
from the nineteen or twenty states heretofore men¬ 
tioned. These men represent peoples who speak 
eleven languages. That means eleven distinct varie¬ 
ties of jealousies, hostilities, and warring interests. 
This could be expected to furnish forth a parlia¬ 
ment of a pretty inharmonious sort, and make legis¬ 
lation difficult at times—and it does that. The 
parliament is split up into many parties—the Cler¬ 
icals, the Progressists, the German Nationalists, the 
Young Czechs, the Social Democrats, the Christian 
Socialists, and some others—and it is difficult to get 
up working combinations among them. They prefer 
to fight apart sometimes. 

The recent troubles have grown out of Count 
Badeni’s necessities. He could not carry on his 
government without a majority vote in the House 
at his back, and in order to secure it he had to 
make a trade of some sort. He made it with the 
Czechs—the Bohemians. The terms were not easy 
for him; he must pass a bill making the Czech tongue 

2°3 


MARK TWAIN 


the official language m Bohemia in place of the 
German. This created a storm. All the Germans 
in Austria were incensed. In numbers they form but 
a fourth part of the empire s population, but they 
urge that the country’s public business should be 
conducted in one common tongue, and that tongue 
a world language—which German is. 

However, Badeni secured his majority. The 
German element in parliament was apparently be¬ 
come helpless. The Czech deputies were exultant. 

Then the music began. Badeni’s voyage, instead 
of being smooth, was disappointingly rough from 

the start. The government must get the Ausgleich 
through. It must not fail. Badeni’s majority was 
ready to carry it through; but the minority was 
determined to obstruct it and delay it until the ob¬ 
noxious Czech-language measure should be shelved. 

The Ausgleich is an Adjustment, Arrangement, 
Settlement, which holds Austria and Hungary to¬ 
gether. It dates from 1867, and ha9 to be renewed 
every ten years. It establishes the share which 
Hungary must pay toward the expenses of the 
imperial government. Hungary is a kingdom (the 
Emperor of Austria is its King), and has its own 
parliament and governmental machinery. But it has 
no foreign office, and it has no army—at least its 
army is a part of the imperial army, is paid out of 
the imperial treasury, and is under the control of the 
imperial war office. 

The ten-year rearrangement was due a year ago, 
but failed to connect. At least completely. A 
year’s compromise was arranged. A new arrange- 

204 



STIRRING TIMES' IN AUSTRIA 

ment must be effected before the last day of this 
year. Otherwise the two countries become separate 
entities. The Emperor would still be King of 
Hungary—that is, King of an independent foreign 
country. There would be Hungarian custom-houses 
on the Austrian frontier, and there would be a Hun¬ 
garian army and a Hungarian foreign office. Both 
countries would be weakened by this, both would 
suffer damage. 

The Opposition in the House, although in the 
minority, had a good weapon to fight with in the 
pending Ausgleich. If it could delay the Ausgleich 
a few weeks, the government would doubtless have 
to withdraw the hated language bill or lose Hungary. 

The Opposition began its fight. Its arms were the 
Rules of the House. It was soon manifest that by 
applying these Rules ingeniously it could make the 
majority helpless, and keep it so as long as it pleased. 
It could shut off business every now and then with 
a motion to adjourn. It could require the ayes and 
noes on the motion, and use up thirty minutes on 
that detail. It could call for the reading and verifi¬ 
cation of the minutes of the preceding meeting, and 
use up half a day in that way. It could require that 
several of its members be entered upon the list of 
permitted speakers previously to the opening of a 
sitting; and as there is no time limit, further delays 
could thus be accomplished. 

These were all lawful weapons, and the men of 
the Opposition (technically called the Left) were 
within their rights in using them. They used them 
to such dire purpose that all parliamentary business 

205 



MARK TWAIN 


was paralyzed. The Right (the government side) 
could accomplish nothing. Then it had a saving 
idea. This idea was a curious one. It was to have 
the President and the Vice-Presidents of the parlia¬ 
ment trample the Rules under foot upon occasion! 

This, for a profoundly embittered minority con¬ 
structed out of fire and gun-cotton! It was time 
for idle strangers to go and ask leave to look down 
out of a gallery and see what would be the result of it. 

II. A MEMORABLE SITTING 

And now took place that memorable sitting of the 
House which broke two records. It lasted the best 
part of two days and a night, surpassing by half an 
hour the longest sitting known to the world’s previous 
parliamentary history, and breaking the long-speech 
record with Dr. Lecher’s twelve-hour effort, the 
longest flow of unbroken talk that ever came out of 
one mouth since the world began. 

At 8.45, on the evening of the 28th of October, 
when the House had been sitting a few minutes short 
of ten hours, Dr. Lecher was granted the floor. It 
was a good place for theatrical effects. I think that 
no other Senate House is so shapely as this one, or 
so richly and showily decorated. Its plan is that 
of an opera-house. Up toward the straight side of 
it—the stage side—rise a couple of terraces of desks 
for the ministry, and the official clerks or secretaries 
—terraces thirty feet long, and each supporting 
about half a dozen desks with spaces between them. 
Above these is the President’s terrace, against the 

206 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

wall. Along it are distributed the proper accommo¬ 
dations for the presiding officer and his assistants. 
The wall is of richly colored marble highly polished, 
its paneled sweep relieved by fluted columns and 
pilasters of distinguished grace and dignity, which 
glow softly and frostily in the electric light. Around 
the spacious half-circle of the floor bends the great 
two-storied curve of the boxes, its frontage elaborate¬ 
ly ornamened and sumptuously gilded. On the floor 
of the House the four hundred and twenty-five desks 
radiate fan wise from the President’s tribune. 

The galleries are crowded on this particular eve¬ 
ning, for word has gone about that the Ausgleich is 
before the House; that the President, Ritter von 
Abrahamowicz, has been throttling the Rules; that 
the Opposition are in an inflammable state in con¬ 
sequence, and that the night session is likely to be 
of an exciting sort. 

The gallery guests are fashionably dressed, and 
the finery of the women makes a bright and pretty 
show under the strong electric light. But down on 
the floor there is no costumery. 

The deputies are dressed in day clothes; some of 
the clothes neat and trim, others not; there may be 
three members in evening dress, but not more. 
There are several Catholic priests in their long black 
gowns, and with crucifixes hanging from their necks. 
No member wears his hat. One may see by these 
details that the aspects are not those of an evening 
sitting of an English House of Commons, but rather 
those of a sitting of our House of Representatives. 

In his high place sits the President, Abraham- 

207 


MARK TWAIN 


owicz, object of the Opposition’s limitless hatred. 
He is sunk back in the depths of his arm-chair, and 
has his chin down. He brings the ends of his spread 
fingers together in front of his breast, and reflectively 
taps them together, with the air of one who would 
like to begin business, but must wait, and be as 
patient as he can. It makes you think of Richelieu. 
Now and then he swings his head up to the left or 
to the right and answers something which some one 
has bent down to say to him. Then he taps his 
fingers again. He looks tired, and maybe a trifle 
harassed. He is a gray-haired, long, slender man, 
with a colorless long face, which, in repose, suggests 
a death-mask; but when not in repose is tossed and 
rippled by a turbulent smile which washes this way 
and that, and is not easy to keep up with—a pious 
smile, a holy smile, a saintly smile, a deprecating 
smile, a beseeching and supplicating smile; and when 
it is at work the large mouth opens and the flexible 
lips crumple, and unfold, and crumple again, and 
move around in a genial and persuasive and angelic 
way, and expose large glimpses of the teeth; and 
that interrupts the sacredness of the smile and gives 
it momentarily a mixed worldly and political and 
Satanic cast. It is a most interesting face to watch. 
And then the long hands and the body—they fur¬ 
nish great and frequent help to the face in the 
business of adding to the force of the statesman’s 
words. 

To change the tense. At the time of which I 
have just been speaking the crowds in the galleries 
were gazing at the stage and the pit with rapt in- 

208 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


i 


terest and expectancy. One half of the great fan 
of desks was in effect empty, vacant; in the other 
half several hundred members were bunched and 
jammed together as solidly as the bristles in a 
brush; and they also were waiting and expecting. 
Presently the Chair delivered this utterance: 

“Dr. Lecher has the floor.” 

Then burst out such another wild and frantic and 
deafening clamor as has not been heard on this 
planet since the last time the Comanches surprised a 
white settlement at midnight. Yells from the Left, 
counter-yells from the Right, explosions of yells 
from all sides at once, and all the air sawed and 
pawed and clawed and cloven by a writhing con¬ 
fusion of gesturing arms and hands. Out of the 
midst of this thunder and turmoil and tempest rose 
Dr. Lecher, serene and collected, and the providen¬ 
tial length of him enabled his head to show out above 
it. He began his twelve-hour speech. At any rate, his 
lips could be seen to move, and that was evidence. 
On high sat the President imploring order, with his 
long hands put together as in prayer, and his lips 
visibly but not hearably speaking. At intervals he 
grasped his bell and swung it up and down with 
vigor, adding its keen clamor to the storm weltering 
there below. 

Dr. Lecher went on with his pantomime speech, 
contented, untroubled. Here and there and now and 
then powerful voices burst above the din, and de¬ 
livered an ejaculation that was heard. Then the din 
ceased for a moment or two, and gave opportunity 
to hear what the Chair might answer; then the noise 

209 





MARK TWAIN 


broke out again. Apparently the President was 
being charged with all sorts of illegal exercises of 
power in the interest of the Right (the government 
side): among these, with arbitrarily closing an Order 
of Business before it was finished; with an unfair 
distribution of the right to the floor; with refusal of 
the floor, upon quibble and protest, to members en¬ 
titled to it; with stopping a speaker’s speech upon 
quibble and protest; and with other transgressions 
of the Rules of the House. One of the interrupters 
who made himself heard was a young fellow of slight 
build and neat dress, who stood a little apart from 
the solid crowd and leaned negligently, with folded 
arms and feet crossed, against a desk. Trim and 
handsome, strong face and thin features; black hair 
roughed up; parsimonious mustache; resonant great 
voice, of good tone and pitch. It is Wolf, capable 
and hospitable with sword and pistol; fighter of the 
recent duel with Count Badeni, the head of the 
government. He shot Badeni through the arm, and 
then walked over in the politest way and inspected 
his game, shook hands, expressed regret, and all 
that. Out of him came early this thundering peal, 
audible above the storm: 

“I demand the floor. I wish to offer a motion.” 

In the sudden lull which followed, the President 
answered, ‘'Dr. Lecher has the floor.” 

Wolf. “I move the close of the sitting!” 

P. “Representative Lecher has the floor.” 
(Stormy outburst from the Left—that is, the 
Opposition.] 

Wolf. “I demand the floor for the introduction 


210 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

of a formal motion. [Pause.] Mr. President, are 
you going to grant it, or not? [Crash of approval 
from the Left.] I will keep on demanding the floor 
till I get it.” 

P. “I call Representative Wolf to order. Dr. 
Lecher has the floor.” 

Wolf. “Mr. President, are you going to observe 
the Rules of this House?” [Tempest of applause and 
confused ejaculations from the Left—a boom and 
roar which long endured, and stopped all business 
for the time being.] 

Dr. von Pessler. “By the Rules motions are in 
order, and the Chair must put them to vote.” 

« 

For answer the President (who is a Pole—I make 
this remark in passing) began to jangle his bell with 
energy at the moment that that wild pandemonium 
of voices burst out again. 

Wolf (hearable above the storm). “Mr. Presi¬ 
dent, I demand the floor. We intend to find out, 
here and now, which is the hardest, a Pole's skull or 
a German's! ” 

This brought out a perfect cyclone of satisfaction 
from the Left. In the midst of it some one again 
moved an adjournment. The President blandly 
answered that Dr. Lecher had the floor. Which was 
true; and he was speaking, too, calmly, earnestly, 
and argumentatively; and the official stenographers 
had left their places and were at his elbows taking 
down his words, he leaning and orating into their 
ears—a most curious and interesting scene. 

Dr. von Pessler (to the Chair). “Do not drive us 
to extremities!” 









MARK TWAIN 

The tempest burst out again; yells of approval 
from the Left, catcalls, an ironical laughter from 
the Right. At this point a new and most effective 
noise-maker was pressed into service. Each desk has 
an extension, consisting of a removable board 
eighteen inches long, six wide, and a half-inch thick. 
A member pulled one of these out and began to 
belabor the top of his desk with it. Instantly other 
members followed suit, and perhaps you can imagine 
the result. Of all conceivable rackets it is the most 
ear-splitting, intolerable, and altogether fiendish. 

The persecuted President leaned back in his chair, 
closed his eyes, clasped his hands in his lap, and a 
look of pathetic resignation crept over his long face. 
It is the way a country schoolmaster used to look in 
days long past when he had refused his school a 
holiday and it had risen against him in ill-mannered 
riot and violence and insurrection. Twice a motion 
to adjourn had been offered—a motion always in 
order in other Houses, and doubtless so in this one 
also. The President had refused to put these mo¬ 
tions. By consequence, he was not in a pleasant 
place now, and was having a right hard time. Votes 
upon motions, whether carried or defeated, could 
make endless delay, and postpone the Ausgleich to 
next century. 

In the midst of these sorrowful circumstances and 
this hurricane of yells and screams and satanic clatter 
of desk-boards, Representative Dr. Kronawetter un¬ 
feelingly reminds the Chair that a motion has been 
offered, and adds: “Say yes, or no! What do you 
sit there for, and give no answer?” 





STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

P. “After I have given a speaker the floor, I can¬ 
not give it to another. After Dr. Lecher is through, 
I will put your motion.” [Storm of indignation from 
the Left.] 

Wolf (to the Chair). “Thunder and lightning! 
look at the Rule governing the case!” 

Kronawetter. “I move the close of the sitting! 
And I demand the ayes and noes!” 

Dr. Lecher. “Mr. President, have I the floor?” 

P. “You have the floor.” 

Wolf (to the Chair, in a stentorian voice which 
cleaves its way through the storm). “It is by such 
brutalities as these that you drive us to extremities! 
Are you waiting till some one shall throw into your 
face the word that shall describe what you are 
bringing about ? 1 [Tempest of insulted fury from the 
Right.] Is that what you are waiting for , old Gray- 
head f ” [Long-continued clatter of desk-boards from 
the Left, with shouts of “The vote! the vote!” An 
ironical shout from the Right, “Wolf is boss!”] 

Wolf keeps on demanding the floor for his motion. 
At length: 

P. “I call Representative Wolf to order! Your 
conduct is unheard-of, sir! You forget that you are 
in a parliament; you must remember where you are, 
sir.” [Applause from the Right. Dr. Lecher is still 
peacefully speaking, the stenographers listening at 
his lips.] 

Wolf (banging on his desk with his desk-board). 
“I demand the floor for my motion! I won’t stand 
this trampling of the Rules under foot—no, not if 

1 That is, revolution. 

213 







MARK TWAIN 


I die for it! I will never yield! You have got to 
stop me by force. Have I the floor?” 

P. * 1 Representative Wolf, what kind of behavior 
is this? I call you to order again. You should have 
some regard for your dignity.” 

Dr. Lecher speaks on. Wolf turns upon him with 
an offensive innuendo. 

Dr. Lecher. “Mr. Wolf, I beg you to refrain from 
that sort of suggestions.” [Storm of hand-clapping 
from the Right.] 

This was applause from the enemy, for Lecher 
himself, like Wolf, was an Obstructionist. 

Wolf growls to Lecher: “You can scribble that 
applause in your album!” 

P. “Once more I call Representative Wolf to 
order! Do not forget that you are a Representative, 
sir!” 

Wolf (slam-banging with his desk-board). “I will 
force this matter! Are you going to grant me the 
floor, or not?” 

And still the sergeant-at-arms did not appear. It 
was because there wasn’t any. It is a curious thing, 
but the Chair has no effectual means of compelling 
order. 

After some more interruptions: 

Wolf (banging with his board). “I demand the 
floor. I will not yield!” 

P. “I have no recourse against Representative 
Wolf. In the presence of behavior like this it is to 
be regretted that such is the case.” [A shout from 
the Right, “Throw him out!”] 

It is true, he had no effective recourse, He had 

m 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


an official called an “Ordner,” whose help he could 
invoke in desperate cases, but apparently the Ordner 
is only a persuader, not a compeller. Apparently he 
is a sergeant-at-arms who is not loaded; a good 
enough gun to look at, but not valuable for business. 

For another twenty or thirty minutes Wolf went 
on banging with his board and demanding his rights; 
then at last the weary President threatened to sum¬ 
mon the dread order-maker. But both his manner 
and his words were reluctant. Evidently it grieved 
him to have to resort to this dire extremity. He said 
to Wolf, “If this goes on, I shall feel obliged to 
summon the Ordner, and beg him to restore order in 
the House.” 

Wolf.." I’d like to see you do it! Suppose you 
fetch in a few policemen, too! [Great tumult.] Are 
you going to put my motion to adjourn, or not?” 

Dr. Lecher continues his speech. Wolf accom¬ 
panies him with his board-clatter. 

The President despatches the Ordner,' Dr. Lang 
(himself a deputy), on his order-restoring mission. 
Wolf, with his board uplifted for defense, confronts 
the Ordner with a remark which Boss Tweed might 
have translated into “Now let’s see what you are 
going to do about it!” [Noise and tumult all over 
the House.] 

Wolf stands • upon his rights, and says he will 
maintain them till he is killed in his tracks. Then 
he resumes his banging, the President jangles his 
bell and begs for order, and the rest of the House 
augments the racket the best it can. 

Wolf. “I require an adjournment, because I find 
15 215 




MARK TWAIN 


myself personally threatened. [Laughter from the 
Right.] Not that I fear for myself; I am only 
anxious about what will happen to the man who 
touches me.” 

The Ordner. “I am not going to fight with you.” 

Nothing came of the efforts of the angel of peace, 
and he presently melted out of the scene and dis¬ 
appeared. Wolf went on with his noise and with 
his demands that he be granted the floor, resting his 
board at intervals to discharge criticisms and epithets 
at the Chair. Once he reminded the Chairman of 
his violated promise to grant him (Wolf) the floor, 
and said, “Whence I came, we call promise-breakers 
rascals!” And he advised the Chairman to take his 
conscience to bed with him and use it as a pillow. 
Another time he said that the Chair was making 
itself ridiculous before all Europe. In fact, some of 
Wolf’s language was almost unparliamentary. By 
and by he struck the idea of beating out a tune with 
his board. Later he decided to stop asking for the 
floor, and to confer it upon himself. And so he and 
Dr. Lecher now spoke at the same time, and mingled 
their speeches with the other noises, and nobody 
heard either of them. Wolf rested himself now and 
then from speech-making by reading, in his clarion 
voice, from a pamphlet. 

I will explain that Dr. Lecher was not making a 
twelve-hour speech for pastime, but for an important 
purpose. It was the government’s intention to push 
the Ausgleich through its preliminary stages in this 
one sitting (for which it was the Order of the Day), 
and then by vote refer it to a select committee. 

216 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

It was the Majority’s scheme—as charged by the 
Opposition—to drown debate upon the bill by pure 
noise—drown it out and stop it. The debate being 
thus ended, the vote upon the reference would follow 
—with victory for the government. But into the 
government’s calculations had not entered the 
possibility of a single-barreled speech which should 
occupy the entire time-limit of the sitting, and also 
get itself delivered in spite of all the noise. Goliah 
was not expecting David. But David was there; 
and during twelve hours he tranquilly pulled statis¬ 
tical, historical, and argumentative pebbles out of his 
scrip and slung them at the giant; and when he was 
done he was victor, and the day was saved. 

In the English House an obstructionist has held 
the floor with Bible-readings and other outside 
matters; but Dr. Lecher could not have that restful 
and recuperative privilege—he must confine himself 
strictly to the subject before the House. More than 
once, when the President could not hear him because 
of the general tumult, he sent persons to listen and 
report as to whether the orator was speaking to the 
subject or not. 

The subject was a peculiarly difficult one, and it 
would have troubled any other deputy to stick to 
it three hours without exhausting his ammunition, 
because it required a vast and intimate knowledge— 
detailed and particularized knowledge—of the com¬ 
mercial, railroading, financial, and international 
banking relations existing between two great sover¬ 
eignties, Hungary and the Empire. But Dr. Lecher 
is President of the Board of Trade of his city of 
15 217 






MARK TWAIN 


Briinn, and was master of the situation. His speech 
was not formally prepared. He had a few notes 
jotted down for his guidance; he had his facts in his 
head; his heart was in his work; and for twelve hours 
he stood there, undisturbed by the clamor around 
him, and with grace and ease and confidence poured 
out the riches of his mind, in closely reasoned argu¬ 
ments, clothed in eloquent and faultless phrasing. 

He is a young man of thirty-seven. He is tall 
and well proportioned, and has cultivated and forti¬ 
fied his muscle by mountain-climbing. If he were a 
little handsomer he would sufficiently reproduce for 
me the Chauncey Depew of the great New England 
dinner nights of some years ago; he has Depew’s 
charm of manner and graces of language and delivery. 

There was but one way for Dr. Lecher to hold the 
floor—he must stay on his legs. If he should sit 
down to rest a moment, the floor would be taken 
from him by the enemy in the Chair. When he had 
been talking three or four hours he himself proposed 
an adjournment, in order that he might get some rest 
from his wearing labors; but he limited his motion 
with the condition that if it was lost he should be 
allowed to continue his speech, and if it carried he 
should have the floor at the next sitting. Wolf was 
now appeased, and withdrew his own thousand- 
times offered motion, and Dr. Lecher’s was voted 
upon—and lost. So he went on speaking. 

By one o’clock in the morning, excitement and 
noise-making had tired out nearly everybody but the 
orator. Gradually the seats of the Right underwent 
depopulation; the occupants had slipped out to the 

218 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


refreshment-rooms to eat and drink, or to the cor¬ 
ridors to chat. Some one remarked that there was 
no longer a quorum present, and moved a call of the 
House. The Chair (Vice-President Dr. Kramarz) 
refused to put it to a vote. There was a small dis¬ 
pute over the legality of this ruling, but the Chair 
held its ground. 

The Left remained on the battle-field to support 
their champion. He went steadily on with his 
speech; and always it was strong, virile, felicitous, 
and to the point. He was earning applause, and 
this enabled his party to turn that fact to account. 
Now and then they applauded him a couple of min¬ 
utes on a stretch, and during that time he could stop 
speaking and rest his voice without having the floor 
taken from him. 

At a quarter to two a member of the Left de¬ 
manded that Dr. Lecher be allowed a recess for rest, 
and said that the Chairman was “heartless.” Dr. 
Lecher himself asked for ten minutes. The Chair 
allowed him five. Before the time had run out Dr. 
Lecher was on his feet again. 

Wolf burst out again with a motion to adjourn. 
Refused by the Chair. Wolf said the whole par¬ 
liament wasn’t worth a pinch of powder. The 
Chair retorted that that was true in a case where 
a single member was able to make all parliamentary 
business impossible. Dr. Lecher continued his 
speech. 

The members of the Majority went out by detach¬ 
ments from time to time and took naps upon sofas 
in the reception-rooms; and also refreshed them- 

219 


MARK TWAIN 

selves with food and drink—in quantities nearly 
unbelievable—but the Minority stayed loyally by 
their champion. Some distinguished deputies of the 
Majority stayed by him, too, compelled thereto by 
admiration of his great performance. When a man 
has been speaking eight hours, is it conceivable that 
he can still be interesting, still fascinating? When 
Dr. Lecher had been speaking eight hours he was 
still compactly surrounded by friends who would not 
leave him and by foes (of all parties) who could not; 
and all hung enchanted and wondering upon his 
words, and all testified their admiration with con¬ 
stant and cordial outbursts of applause. Surely this 
was a triumph without precedent in history. 

During the twelve-hour effort friends brought to 
the orator three glasses of wine, four cups of coffee, 
and one glass of beer — a most stingy reinforce¬ 
ment of his wasting tissues, but the hostile Chair 
would permit no addition to it. But no matter, the 
Chair could not beat that man. He was a garrison 
holding a fort, and was not to be starved out. 

When he had been speaking eight hours his pulse 
was seventy-two; when he had spoken twelve, it 
was one hundred. 

He finished his long speech in these terms, as nearly 
as a permissibly free translation can convey them: 

“I will now hasten to close my examination of 
the subject. I conceive that we of the Left have 
made it clear to the honorable gentlemen of the other 
side of the House that we are stirred by no in¬ 
temperate enthusiasm for this measure in its present 
shape. . . . 


220 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


‘‘What we require, and shall fight for with all 
lawful weapons, is a formal, comprehensive, and 
definitive solution and settlement of these vexed 
matters. We desire the restoration of the earlier 
condition of things; the cancellation of all this in¬ 
capable government’s pernicious trades with Hun¬ 
gary; and then—release from the sorry burden of 
the Badeni ministry! 

“I voice the hope—I know not if it will be ful¬ 
filled—I voice the deep and sincere and patriotic 
hope that the committee into whose hands this bill 
will eventually be committed will take its stand upon 
high ground, and will return the Ausgleich-Pro- 
visorium to this House in a form which shall make 
it the protector and promoter alike of the great 
interests involved and of the honor of our father- 
land.” After a pause, turning toward the govern¬ 
ment benches: ‘‘But in any case, gentlemen of the 
Majority, make sure of this: henceforth, as before, 
you will find us at our post. The Germans of 
Austria will neither surrender nor die!” 

Then burst a storm of applause which rose and 
fell, rose and fell, burst out again and again and 
again, explosion after explosion, hurricane after 
hurricane, with no apparent promise of ever coming 
to an end; and meantime the whole Left was surg¬ 
ing and weltering about the champion, all bent upon 
wringing his hand and congratulating him and glori¬ 
fying him. 

Finally he got away, and went home and ate five 
loaves and twelve baskets of fishes, read the morning 
papers, slept three hours, took a short drive, then 

221 



MARK TWAIN 


returned to the House and sat out the rest of the 
thirty-three-hour session. 

To merely stand up in one spot twelve hours on 
a stretch is a feat which very few men could achieve; 
to add to the task the utterance of a hundred thou¬ 
sand words would be beyond the possibilities of the 
most of those few; to superimpose the requirement 
that the words should be put into the form of a 
compact, coherent, and symmetrical oration would 
probably rule out the rest of the few, bar Dr. Lecher. 

III. CURIOUS PARLIAMENTARY ETIQUETTE 

In consequence of Dr. Lecher’s twelve-hour speech 
and the other obstructions furnished by the Mi¬ 
nority, the famous thirty-three-hour sitting of the 
House accomplished nothing. The government side 
had made a supreme effort, assisting itself with all 
the helps at hand, both lawful and unlawful, yet had 
failed to get the Ausgleich into the hands of a com¬ 
mittee. This was a severe defeat. The Right was 
mortified, the Left jubilant. 

Parliament was adjourned for a week—to let the 
members cool off, perhaps—a sacrifice of precious 
time, for but two months remained in which to carry 
the all-important Ausgleich to a consummation. 

If I have reported the behavior of the House in¬ 
telligibly, the reader has been surprised at it, and has 
wondered whence these lawmakers come and what 
they are made of; and he has probably supposed that 
the conduct exhibited at the Long Sitting was far 
out of the common, and due to special excitement 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


and irritation. As to the make-up of the House, it 
is this: the deputies come from all the walks of life 
and from all the grades of society. There are princes, 
counts, barons, priests, peasants, mechanics, laborers, 
lawyers, judges, physicians, professors, merchants, 
bankers, shopkeepers. They are religious men, they 
are earnest, sincere, devoted, and they hate the Jews. 
The title of Doctor is so common in the House that 
one may almost say that the deputy who does not 
bear it is by that reason conspicuous. I am assured 
that it is not a self-granted title, and not an honorary 
one, but an earned one; that in Austria it is very 
seldom conferred as a mere compliment; that in 
Austria the degrees of Doctor of Music, Doctor of 
Philosophy, and so on, are not conferred by the 
seats of learning; and so, when an Austrian is called 
Doctor it means that he is either a lawyer or a 
physician, and that he is not a self-educated man, 
but is college-bred, and has been diplomaed for merit. 

That answers the question of the constitution of 
the House. Now as to the House’s curious manners. 
The manners exhibited by this convention of Doctors 
were not at that time being tried as a wholly new 
experiment. I will go back to a previous sitting in 
order to show that the deputies had already had 
some practice. 

There had been an incident. The dignity of the 
House had been wounded by improprieties indulged 
in in its presence by a couple of the members. This 
matter was placed in the hands of a committee to 
determine where the guilt lay, and the degree of it, 
and also to suggest the punishment. The chairman 

223 


MARK TWAIN 


of the committee brought in his report. By this it 
appeared that, in the course of a speech, Deputy 
Schrammel said that religion had no proper place 
in the public schools—it was a private matter. 
Whereupon Deputy Gregorig shouted, “How about 
free love!” 

To this, Deputy Iro flung out this retort: “Soda- 
water at the Wimberger!” 

This appeared to deeply offend Deputy Gregorig, 
who shouted back at Iro, “You cowardly blather¬ 
skite, say that again!” 

The committee had sat three hours. Gregorig 
had apologized; Iro had explained. Iro explained 
that he didn’t say anything about soda-water at the 
Wimberger. He explained in writing, and was very 
explicit: “I declare upon my word of honor that I 
did not say the words attributed to me.” 

Unhappily for his word of honor, it was proved by 
the official stenographers and by the testimony of 
several deputies that he did say them. 

The committee did not officially know why the 
apparently inconsequential reference to soda-water 
at the Wimberger should move Deputy Gregorig to 
call the utterer of it a cowardly blatherskite; still, 
after proper deliberation, it was of the opinion that 
the House ought to formally censure the whole 
business. This verdict seems to have been regarded 
as sharply severe. I think so because Deputy Dr. 
Lueger, Burgermeister of Vienna, felt it a duty to 
soften the blow to his friend Gregorig by showing 
that the soda-water remark was not so innocuous as 
it might look; that indeed Gregorig’s tough retort 

224 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


was justifiable—and he proceeded to explain why. 
He read a number of scandalous post-cards which 
he intimated had proceeded from Iro, as indicated 
by the handwriting, though they were anonymous. 
Some of them were posted to Gregorig at his place 
of business, and could have been read by all his 
subordinates; the others were posted to Gregorig s 
wife. Lueger did not say—but everybody knew— 
that the cards referred to a matter of town gossip 
which made Mr. Gregorig a chief actor in a tavern 
scene where siphon-squirting played a prominent and 
humorous part, and wherein women had a share. 

There were several of the cards; more than several. 
in fact; no fewer than five were sent in one day, 
Dr. Lueger read some of them, and described others. 
Some of them had pictures on them; one a picture 
of a hog with a monstrous snout, and beside it a 
squirting soda-siphon; below it some sarcastic dog¬ 
gerel. 

Gregorig deals in shirts, cravats, etc. One of the 
cards bore these words: “Much respected Deputy 
and collar-sewer—or stealer .” 

Another: “Hurrah for the Christian-Social work 
among the women assemblages! Hurrah for the 
soda-squirter!” Comment by Dr. Lueger: “I can¬ 
not venture to read the rest of that one, nor the 
signature, either.” 

Another: “Would you mind telling me if . . .” 

Comment by Dr. Lueger: “The rest of it is not 
properly readable.” 

To Deputy Gregorig’s wife: “Much respected 
Madam Gregorig,— The undersigned desires an 

225 



MARK TWAIN 


invitation to the next soda-squirt.” Comment by 
Dr. Lueger: "Neither the rest of the card nor the 
signature can I venture to read to the House, so 
vulgar are they.” 

The purpose of this card—to expose Gregorig 
to his family—was repeated in others of these 
anonymous missives. 

The House, by vote, censured the two improper 
deputies. 

This may have had a modifying effect upon the 
phraseology of the membership for a while, and upon 
its general exuberance also, but it was not for long. 
As has been seen, it had become lively once more 
on the night of the Long Sitting. At the next 
sitting after the long one there was certainly no lack 
of liveliness. The President was persistently ignor¬ 
ing the Rules of the House in the interest of the 
government side, and the Minority were in an un¬ 
appeasable fury about it. The ceaseless din and 
uproar, the shouting and stamping and desk-bang¬ 
ing, were deafening, but through it all burst voices 
now and then that made themselves heard. Some 
of the remarks were of a very candid sort, and I 
believe that if they had been uttered in our House 
of Representatives they would have attracted at¬ 
tention. I will insert some samples here. Not in 
their order, but selected on their merits: 

Dr. Mayreder (to the President). "You have 
lied! You conceded the floor to me; make it good, 
or you have lied!” 

Mr. Glockner (to the President). "Leave! Get 
out!” 


226 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

Wolf (indicating the President). “There sits a 
man to whom a certain title belongs!” 

Unto Wolf, who is continuously reading, in a 
powerful voice, from a newspaper, arrive these per¬ 
sonal remarks from the Majority: “Oh, shut your 
mouth!” “Put him out!” “Out with him!” Wolf 
stops reading a moment to shout at Dr. Lueger, 
who has the floor, but cannot get a hearing, ‘ ‘ Please, 
Betrayer of the People, begin!” 

Dr. Lueger. “Meine Herren—” [“Oho!” and 

groans.] 

Wolf. “ That's the holy light of the Christian 
Socialists!” 

Mr. Kletzenbauer (Christian Socialist). “Dam— 
nation! are you ever going to quiet down?” 

Wolf discharges a galling remark at Mr. Wohl- 
meyer. 

Wohlmeyer (responding). “You Jew, you!” 

There is a moment’s lull, and Dr. Lueger begins 
his speech. Graceful, handsome man, with winning 
manners and attractive bearing, a bright and easy 
speaker, and is said to know how to trim his political 
sails to catch any favoring wind that blows. He 
manages to say a few words, then the tempest over¬ 
whelms him again. 

Wolf stops reading his paper a moment to say a 
drastic thing about Lueger and his Christian-Social 
pieties, which sets the C. S.’s in a sort of frenzy. 

Mr. Vielohlawek. “You leave the Christian Social¬ 
ists alone, you word-of-honor-breaker! Obstruct 
all you want to, but you leave them alone! You’ve 
no business in this House; you belong in a gin-mill!” 

227 


MARK TWAIN 


Mr. Prochazka. “In a lunatic asylum, you mean!” 

Vielohlawek. “It’s a pity that such a man should 
be leader of the Germans; he disgraces the German 
name!’’ 

Dr. Scheicher. “It’s a shame that the like of him 
should insult us.’’ 

Strohback (to Wolf). “Contemptible cub—we will 
bounce thee out of this!’’ [It is inferable that the 
“thee’’ is not intended to indicate affection this 
time, but to reinforce and emphasize Mr. Stroh- 
bach’s scorn.] 

Dr. Scheicher. “His insults are of no consequence. 
He wants his ears boxed.’’ 

Dr. Lueger (to Wolf). “You’d better worry a trifle 
over your Iro’s word of honor. You are behaving 
like a street arab.’’ 

Dr. Scheicher. “It’s infamous!” 

Dr. Lueger. “And these shameless creatures are 
the leaders of the German People’s Party!” 

Meantime Wolf goes whooping along with his 
newspaper-readings in great contentment. 

Dr. Pattai. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You 
haven’t the floor!” 

Strohbach. “The miserable cub!” 

Dr. Lueger (to Wolf, raising his voice strenuously 
above the storm). “You are a wholly honorless 
street brat!” [A voice, “Fire the rapscallion out!” 
But Wolf’s soul goes marching noisily on, just the 
same.] 

Schonerer (vast and muscular, and endowed with 
the most powerful voice in the Reichsrath; comes 
plowing down through the standing crowds, red, 

228 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


and choking with anger; halts before Deputy Wohl- 
meyer, grabs a rule and smashes it with a blow upon 
a desk, threatens Wohlmeyer’s face with his fist, 
and bellows out some personalities, and a promise). 
“Only you wait—we’ll teach you!” [A whirlwind 
of offensive retorts assails him from the band of 
meek and humble Christian Socialists compacted 
around their leader, that distinguished religious ex¬ 
pert, Dr. Lueger, Burgermeister of Vienna. Our 
breath comes in excited gasps now, and we are 
full of hope. We imagine that we are back fifty 
years ago in the Arkansas Legislature, and we 
think we know what is going to happen, and are 
glad we came, and glad we are up in the gallery, 
out of the way, where we can see the whole thing 
and yet not have to supply any of the material for 
the inquest. However, as it turns out, our con¬ 
fidence is abused, our hopes are misplaced.] 

Dr. Pattai (wildly excited). “You quiet down, or 
we shall turn ourselves loose! There will be a cuff¬ 
ing of ears!” 

Prochazka (in a fury). “No —not ear-boxing, but 
genuine blows /” 

Vielohlawek. “I would rather take my hat off to 
a Jew than to Wolf!” 

Strohback (to Wolf). “Jew-flunky! Here we have 
been fighting the Jews for ten years, and now you 
are helping them to power again. How much do 
you get for it?” 

Holansky. “What he wants is a strait-jacket!” 

Wolf continues his readings. It is a market re¬ 
port now. 


229 


MARK TWAIN 


Remark flung across the House to Schonerer: 
11 Die Grossmutter aufdem Misthaufen erzeugt worden /” 

It will be judicious not to translate that. Its 
flavor is pretty high, in any case, but it becomes par¬ 
ticularly gamey when you remember that the first 
gallery was well stocked with ladies. 

Apparently it was a great hit. It fetched thunders 
of joyous enthusiasm out of the Christian Socialists, 
and in their rapture they flung biting epithets with 
wasteful liberality at specially detested members of 
the Opposition; among others, this one at Schonerer: 
“Bordell in der Krugerstrasse!" Then they added 
these words, which they whooped, howled, and also 
even sang, in a deep-voiced chorus: “ Schmul Leeb 
Kohn! Schmul Leeb Kohn! Schmul Leeb Kohn!" 
and made it splendidly audible above the banging 
of desk-boards and the rest of the roaring cyclone 
of fiendish noises. [A gallery witticism comes flit¬ 
ting by from mouth to mouth around the great 
curve: “The swan-song of Austrian representa¬ 
tive government!” You can note its progress by 
the applausive smiles and nods it gets as it skims 
along.] 

Kletzenbauer. “Holof ernes, where is Judith?” 
[Storm of laughter.] 

Gregorig (the shirt-merchant). “This Wolf-Theater 
is costing six thousand florins!” 

Wolf (with sweetness). “Notice him, gentlemen; 
it is Mr. Gregorig.” [Laughter.] 

Vielohlavuek (to Wolf). “You Judas!” 

Schneider. 11 Brothel-Knight!” 

Chorus of Voices. “East-German offal-tub!” 

230 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


And so the war of epithets crashes along, with 
never-diminishing energy, for a couple of hours. 

The ladies in the gallery were learning. That was 
well; for by and by ladies will form a part of the 
membership of all the legislatures in the world; as 
soon as they can prove competency they will be 
admitted. At present, men only are competent to 
legislate; therefore they look down upon women, and 
would feel degraded if they had to have them for 
colleagues in their high calling. 

Wolf is yelling another market report now. 

Gessman. “Shut up, infamous louse-brat!” 

During a momentary lull Dr. Lueger gets a hearing 
for three sentences of his speech. They demand and 
require that the President shall suppress the four 
noisiest members of the Opposition. 

Wolf (with a that-settles-it toss of the head). 
“The shifty trickster of Vienna has spoken!” 

Iro belonged to Schonerer’s party. The word-of- 
honor incident has given it a new name. Gregorig 
is a Christian Socialist, and hero of the post-cards 
and the Wimberger soda-squirting incident. He 
stands vast and conspicuous, and conceited and self- 
satisfied, and roosterish and inconsequential, at 
Lueger’s elbow, and is proud and cocky to be in such 
great company. He looks very well indeed; really 
majestic, and aware of it. He crows out his little 
empty remark, now and then, and looks as pleased 
as if he had been delivered of the Ausgleich. Indeed, 
he does look notably fine. He wears almost the only 
dress vest on the floor; it exposes a continental 
spread of white shirt-front; his hands are posed at 

231 


16 






MARK TWAIN 


ease in the lips of his trousers pockets; his head is 
tilted back complacently; he is attitudinizing; he is 
playing to the gallery. However, they are all doing 
that. It is curious to see. Men who only vote, and 
can’t make speeches, and don’t know how to invent 
witty ejaculations, wander about the vacated parts 
of the floor, and stop in a good place and strike 
attitudes—attitudes suggestive of weighty thought, 
mostly—and glance furtively up at the galleries to 
see how it works; or a couple will come together and 
shake hands in an artificial way, and laugh a gay 
manufactured laugh, and do some constrained and 
self-conscious attitudinizing; and they steal glances 
at the galleries to see if they are getting notice. 
It is like a scene on the stage—by-play by minor 
actors at the back while the stars do the great work 
at the front. Even Count Badeni attitudinizes for 
a moment; strikes a reflective Napoleonic attitude 
of fine picturesqueness—but soon thinks better of 
it and desists. There are two who do not attitudin¬ 
ize—poor harried and insulted President Abraham- 
owicz, who seems wholly miserable, and can find no 
way to put in the dreary time but by swinging his 
bell and by discharging occasional remarks which 
nobody can hear; and a resigned and patient priest, 
who sits lonely in a great vacancy on Majority 
territory and munches an apple. 

Schonerer uplifts his fog-horn of a voice and 
shakes the roof with an insult discharged at the 
Majority. 

Dr. Lueger. “The Honorless Party would better 
keep still here!” 

232 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

Gregroig (the echo, swelling out his shirt-front). 
“Yes, keep quiet, pimp!” 

Schonerer (to Lueger). “Political mountebank!” 

Prochazka (to Schonerer). “Drunken clown!” 

During the final hour of the sitting many happy 
phrases were distributed through the proceedings. 
Among them were these—and they are strikingly 
good ones: 

Blatherskite! 

Blackguard! 

Scoundrel! 

Brothel-daddy! 

This last was the contribution of Dr. Gessman, 
and gave great satisfaction. And deservedly. It 
seems to me that it was one of the most sparkling 
things that was said during the whole evening. 

At half-past two in the morning the House ad¬ 
journed. The victory was with the Opposition. 
No; not quite that. The effective part of it was 
snatched away from them by an unlawful exercise 
of Presidential force—another contribution toward 
driving the mistreated Minority out of their minds. 

At other sittings of the parliament, gentlemen of 
the Opposition, shaking their fists toward the Presi¬ 
dent, addressed him as “Polish Dog.” At one sit¬ 
ting an angry deputy turned upon a colleague and 
shouted: 

a _ 

You must try to imagine what it was. If I should 
offer it even in the original it would probably not get 
by the Magazine editor’s blue pencil; to offer a 
translation would be to waste my ink, of course. 
16 233 




MARK TWAIN 


This remark was frankly printed in its entirety by 
one of the Vienna dailies, but the others disguised 
the toughest half of it with stars. 

If the reader will go back over this chapter and 
gather its array of extraordinary epithets into a 
bunch and examine them, he will marvel at two 
things: how this convention of gentlemen could con¬ 
sent to use such gross terms; and why the users were 
allowed to get out of the place alive. There is no 
way to understand this strange situation. If every 
man in the House were a professional blackguard, 
and had his home in a sailor boarding-house, one 
could still not understand it; for although that sort 
do use such terms, they never take them. These men 
are not professional blackguards; they are mainly 
gentlemen, and educated; yet they use the terms, 
and take them, too. They really seem to attach no 
consequence to them. One cannot say that they act 
like school-boys; for that is only almost true, not en¬ 
tirely. School-boys blackguard each other fiercely, 
and by the hour, and one would think that nothing 
would ever come of it but noise; but that would 
be a mistake. Up to a certain limit the result would 
be noise only, but that limit overstepped, trouble 
would follow right away. There are certain phrases 
—phrases of a peculiar character—phrases of the 
nature of that reference to Schonerer’s grandmother, 
for instance, which not even the most spiritless 
school-boy in the English-speaking world would al¬ 
low to pass unavenged. One difference between 
school-boys and the lawmakers of the Reichsrath 
seems to be that the lawmakers have no limit, no 

234 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


danger-line. Apparently they may call each other 
what they please, and go home unmutilated. 

Now, in fact, they did have a scuffle on two occa¬ 
sions, but it was not on account of names called. 
There has been no scuffle where that was the cause. 

It is not to be inferred that the House lacks a 
sense of honor because it lacks delicacy. That 
would be an error. Iro was caught in a lie, and it 
profoundly disgraced him. The House cut him, 
turned its back upon him. He resigned his seat; 
otherwise he would have been expelled. But it was 
lenient with Gregorig, who had called Iro a cowardly 
blatherskite in debate. It merely went through the 
form of mildly censuring him. That did not trouble 
Gregorig. 

The Viennese say of themselves that they are an 
easy-going, pleasure-loving community, making the 
best of life, and not taking it very seriously. Never¬ 
theless, they are grieved about the w^ays of their 
parliament, and say quite frankly that they are 
ashamed. They claim that the low condition of the 
parliament’s manners is new, not old. A gentleman 
who was at the head of the government twenty years 
ago confirms this, and says that in his time the par¬ 
liament was orderly and well behaved. An English 
gentleman of long residence here indorses this, and 
and says that a low order of politicians originated 
the present forms of questionable speech on the 
stump some years ago, and imported them into the 
parliament . 1 However, some day there will be a 

1 In that gracious bygone time when a mild and good-tempered 
gpirit was the atmosphere of our House, when the manner of our 

235 


MARK TWAIN 


Minister of Etiquette and a sergeant-at-arms, and 
then things will go better. I mean if parliament and 
the Constitution survive the present storm. 


IV. THE HISTORIC CLIMAX 

During the whole of November things went from 
bad to worse. The all-important Ausgleich remained 
hard aground, and could not be sparred off. Badeni’s 
government could not withdraw the Language Ordi¬ 
nance and keep its majority, and the Opposition 
could not be placated on easier terms. One night, 
while the customary pandemonium was crashing 
and thundering along at its best, a fight broke out. 
It was a surging, struggling, shoulder-to-shoulder 
scramble. A great many blows were struck. Twice 
Schonerer lifted one of the heavy ministerial fauteuils 
—some say with one hand—and threatened members 
of the Majority with it, but it was wrenched away 
from him; a member hammered Wolf over the head 
with the President’s bell, and another member choked 
him; a professor was flung down and belabored with 
fists and choked; he held up an open penknife as a 
defense against the blows; it was snatched from him 
and flung to a distance; it hit a peaceful Christian 
Socialist who wasn’t doing anything, and brought 
blood from his hand. This was the only blood 
drawn. The men who got hammered and choked 
looked sound and well next day. The fists and the 

speakers was studiously formal and academic, and the storms and 
explosions of to-day were wholly unknown,” etc. — Translation of 
the opening remark of an editorial in this morning's Neue Freie Presse, 
December i. 


236 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

bell were not properly handled, or better results 
would have been apparent. I am quite sure that 
the fighters were not in earnest. 

On Thanksgiving day the sitting was a history¬ 
making one. On that day the harried, bedeviled, 
and despairing government went insane. In order 
to free itself from the thraldom of the Opposition it 
committed this curiously juvenile crime: it moved an 
important change of the Rules of the House, forbade 
debate upon the motion, put it to a stand-up vote 
instead of ayes and noes, and then gravely claimed 
that it had been adopted; whereas, to even the 
dullest witness—if I without immodesty may pretend 
to that place—it was plain that nothing legitimately 
to be called a vote had been taken at all. 

I think that Saltpeter never uttered a truer thing 
than when he said, “Whom the gods would destroy 
they first make mad.” 

Evidently the government’s mind was tottering 
when this bald insult to the House was the best way 
it could contrive for getting out of the frying-pan. 

The episode would have been funny if the matter 
at stake had been a trifle; but in the circumstances 
it was pathetic. The usual storm was raging in the 
House. As usual, many of the Majority and the 
most of the Minority were standing up—to have a 
better chance to exchange epithets and make other 
noises. Into this storm Count Falkenhayn entered, 
with his paper in his hand; and at once there was a 
rush to get near him and hear him read his motion. 
In a moment he was walled in by listeners. The 
several clauses of his motion were loudly applauded 

237 



MARK TWAIN 


by these allies, and as loudly disapplauded—if I may 
invent a word—by such of the Opposition as could 
hear his voice. When he took his seat the President 
promptly put the motion—persons desiring to vote 
in the affirmative, stand up! The House was already 
standing up; had been standing for an hour; and be¬ 
fore a third of it had found out what the President 
had been saying, he had proclaimed the adoption of 
the motion! And only a few heard that. In fact, 
when that House is legislating you can’t tell it from 
artillery practice. 

You will realize what a happy idea it was to side¬ 
track the lawful ayes and noes and substitute a 
stand-up vote by this fact: that a little later, when 
a deputation of deptuties waited upon the President 
and asked him if he was actually willing to claim that 
that measure had been passed, he answered, “Yes 
‘—and unanimously .” It shows that in effect the 
whole house was on its feet when that trick was 
sprung. 

The “Lex Falkenhayn, ,, thus strangely bom, gave 
the President power to suspend for three days any 
deputy who should continue to be disorderly after 
being called to order twice, and it also placed at 
his disposal such force as might be necessary to 
make the suspension effective. So the House had a 
sergeant-at-arms at last, and a more formidable one, 
as to power, than any other legislature in Christen¬ 
dom had ever possessed. The Lex Falkerihayn also 
gave the House itself authority to suspend members 
for thirty days. 

On these terms the Ausgleich could be put through 

238 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


in an hour—apparently. The Opposition would have 
to sit meek and quiet, and stop obstructing, or be 
turned into the street, deputy after deputy, leaving 
the Majority an unvexed field for its work. 

Certainly the thing looked well. The government 
was out of the frying-pan at last. It congratulated 
itself, and was almost girlishly happy. Its stock rose 
suddenly from less than nothing to a premium. It 
confessed to itself, with pride, that its Lex Falken- 
hayn was a master-stroke—a work of genius. 

However, there were doubters; men who were 
troubled, and believed that a grave mistake had been 
made. It might be that the Opposition was crushed, 
and profitably for the country, too; but the manner 
of it—the manner of it! That was the serious part. 
It could have far-reaching results; results whose 
gravity might transcend all guessing. It might be 
the initial step toward a return to government by 
force, a restoration of the irresponsible methods of 
obsolete times. 

There were no vacant seats in the galleries next 
day. In fact, standing-room outside the building 
was at a premium. There were crowds there, and 
a glittering array of helmeted and brass-buttoned 
police, on foot and on horseback, to keep them from 
getting too much excited. No one could guess what 
was going to happen, but every one felt that some¬ 
thing was going to happen, and hoped he might have 
a chance to see it, or at least get the news of it 
while it was fresh. 

At noon the House was empty—for I do not 
count myself. Half an hour later the two galleries 

239 



MARK TWAIN 


were solidly packed, the floor still empty. Another 
half-hour later Wolf entered and passed to his place; 
then other deputies began to stream in, among them 
many forms and faces grown familiar of late. By 
one o’clock the membership was present in full force. 
A band of Socialists stood grouped against the 
ministerial desks, in the shadow of the Presidential 
tribune. It was observable that these official strong¬ 
holds were now protected against rushes by bolted 
gates, and that these were in ward of servants 
wearing the House’s livery. Also the removable 
desk-boards had been taken away, and nothing left 
for disorderly members to slat with. 

There was a pervading, anxious hush—at least 
what stood very well for a hush in that house. It 
was believed by many that the Opposition was cowed, 
and that there would be no more obstruction, no 
more noise. That was an error. 

Presently the President entered by the distant door 
to the right, followed by Vice-President Fuchs, and 
the two took their way down past the Polish benches 
toward the tribune. Instantly the customary storm 
of noises burst out, and rose higher and higher, and 
wilder and wilder, and really seemed to surpass any¬ 
thing that had gone before it in that place. The 
President took his seat, and begged for order, but 
no one could hear him. His lips moved—one could 
see that; he bowed his body forward appealingly, and 
spread his great hand eloquently over his breast— 
one could see that; but as concerned his uttered 
words, he probably could not hear them himself. 
Below him was that crowd of two dozen Socialists 

240 


STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 


glaring up at him, shaking their fists at him, roaring 
imprecations and insulting epithets at him. This 
went on for some time. Suddenly the Socialists 
burst through the gates and stormed up through the 
ministerial benches, and a man in a red cravat 
reached up and snatched the documents that lay 
on the President’s desk and flung them abroad. 
The next moment he and his allies were struggling 
and fighting with the half-dozen uniformed servants 
who were there to protect the new gates. Mean¬ 
time a detail of Socialists had swarmed up the 
side-steps and overflowed the President and the Vice, 
and were crowding and shouldering and shoving 
them out of the place. They crowded them out, 
and down the steps and across the House, past the 
Polish benches; and all about them swarmed hostile 
Poles and Czechs, who resisted them. One could 
see fists go up and come down, with other signs and 
shows of a heady fight; then the President and the 
Vice disappeared through the door of entrance, and 
the victorious Socialists turned and marched back, 
mounted the tribune, flung the President’s bell and 
his remaining papers abroad, and then stood there 
in a compact little crowd, eleven strong, and held 
the place as if it were a fortress. Their friends on 
the floor were in a frenzy of triumph, and manifested 
it in their deafening way. The whole House was 
on its feet, amazed and wondering. 

It was an astonishing situation, and imposingly 
dramatic. Nobody had looked for this. The un¬ 
expected had happened. What next? But there 
can be no next; the play is over; the grand climax 

241 


MARK TWAIN 


is reached; the possibilities are exhausted: ring 
down the curtain. 

Not yet. That distant door opens again. And 
now we see what history will be talking of five 
centuries hence: a uniformed and helmeted battalion 
of bronzed and stalwart men marching in double file 
down the floor of the House—a free parliament pro¬ 
faned by an invasion of brute force. 

It was an odious spectacle—odious and awful. 
For one moment it was an unbelievable thing — a 
thing beyond all credibility; it must be a delusion, a 
dream, a nightmare. But no, it was real—pitifully 
real, shamefully real, hideously real. These sixty 
policemen had been soldiers, and they went at their 
work with the cold unsentimentality of their trade. 
They ascended the steps of the tribune, laid their 
hands upon the inviolable persons of the represent¬ 
atives of a nation, and dragged and tugged and 
hauled them down the steps and out at the door; 
then ranged themselves in stately military array in 
front of the ministerial estrade, and so stood. 

It was a tremendous episode. The memory of it 
will outlast all the thrones that exist to-day. In the 
whole history of free parliaments the like of it had 
been seen but three times before. It takes its im¬ 
posing place among the world’s unforgetable things. 
I think that in my lifetime I have not twice seen 
abiding history made before my eyes, but I know 
that I have seen it once. 

Some of the results of this wild freak followed 
instantly. The Badeni government came down with 
a crash; there was a popular outbreak or two in 

242 



STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA 

Vienna; there were three or four days of furious 
rioting in Prague, followed by the establishing there 
of martial law; the Jews and Germans were harried 
and plundered, and their houses destroyed; in other 
Bohemian towns there was rioting—in some cases 
the Germans being the rioters, in others the Czechs 
—and in all cases the Jew had to roast, no matter 
which side he was on. We are well along in De¬ 
cember now ; 1 the new Minister-President has not 
been able to patch up a peace among the warring 
factions of the parliament, therefore there is no use 
in calling it together again for the present; public 
opinion believes that parliamentary government and 
the Constitution are actually threatened with ex¬ 
tinction, and that the permanency of the monarchy 
itself is a not absolutely certain thing! 

Yes, the Lex Falkenhayn was a great invention, 
and did what was claimed for it—it got the govern^ 
ment out of the frying-pan. 


1 It is the 9th.—M. T. 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


I FEEL lost in Berlin. It has no resemblance to 
the city I had supposed it was. There was once 
a Berlin which I would have known, from descrip¬ 
tions in books—the Berlin of the last century and the 
beginning of the present one: a dingy city in a marsh, 
with rough streets, muddy and lantern - lighted, 
dividing straight rows of ugly houses all alike, com¬ 
pacted into blocks as square and plain and uniform 
and monotonous and serious as so many dry-goods 
boxes. But that Berlin has disappeared. It seems 
to have disappeared totally, and left no sign. The 
bulk of the Berlin of to-day has about it no sugges¬ 
tion of a former period. The site it stands on has 
traditions and a history, but the city itself has no 
traditions and no history. It is a new city; the 
newest I have ever seen. Chicago would seem 
venerable beside it; for there are many old-looking 
districts in Chicago, but not many in Berlin. The 
main mass of the city looks as if it had been built 
last week, the rest of it has a just perceptibly graver 
tone, and looks as if it might be six or even eight 
months old. 

The next feature that strikes one is the spacious¬ 
ness, the roominess of the city. There is no other 
city, in any country, whose streets are so generally 

244 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


wide. Berlin is not merely a city of wide streets, 
it is the city of wide streets. As a wide-street city 
it has never had its equal, in any age of the world. 
“Unter den Linden” is three streets in one; the 
Potsdamerstrasse is bordered on both sides by side¬ 
walks which are themselves wider than some of the 
historic thoroughfares of the old European capitals; 
there seem to be no lanes or alleys; there are no 
.short cuts; here and there, where several important 
streets empty into a common center, that center’s 
circumference is of a magnitude calculated to bring 
that word spaciousness into your mind again. The 
park in the middle of the city is so huge that it calls 
up that expression once more. 

The next feature that strikes one is the straightness 
of the streets. The short ones haven’t so much as 
a waver in them; the long ones stretch out to pro¬ 
digious distances and then tilt a little to the right or 
left, then stretch out on another immense reach as 
straight as a ray of light. A result of this arrange¬ 
ment is, that at night Berlin is an inspiring sight to 
see. Gas and the electric light are employed with 
a wasteful liberality, and so, wherever one goes, he 
has always double ranks of brilliant lights stretching 
far down into the night on every hand, with here and 
there a wide and splendid constellation of them 
spread out over an intervening “Platz”; and be¬ 
tween the interminable double procession of street 
lamps one has the swarming and darting cab lamps, 
a lively and pretty addition to the fine spectacle, for 
they counterfeit the rush and confusion and sparkle 
of an invasion of fireflies. 

245 





MARK TWAIN 


There is one other noticeable feature—the abso¬ 
lutely level surface of the site of Berlin. Berlin—to 
recapitulate—is newer to the eye than is any other 
city, and also blonder of complexion and tidier; no 
other city has such an air of roominess, freedom 
from crowding; no other city has so many straight 
streets; and with Chicago it contests the chromo for 
flatness of surface and for phenomenal swiftness of 
growth. Berlin is the European Chicago. The two 
cities have about the same population—say a million 
and a half. I cannot speak in exact terms, because 
I only know what Chicago’s population was week 
before last; but at that time it was about a million 
and a half. Fifteen years ago Berlin and Chicago 
were large cities, of course, but neither of them was 
the giant it now is. 

But now the parallels fail. Only parts of Chicago 
are stately and beautiful, whereas all of Berlin is 
stately and substantial, and it is not merely in parts 
but uniformly beautiful. There are buildings in 
Chicago that are architecturally finer than any in 
Berlin, I think, but what I have just said above is 
still true. These two fiat cities would lead the 
world for phenomenal good health if London were 
out of the way. As it is, London leads by a point 
or two. Berlin’s death rate is only nineteen in the 
thousand. Fourteen years ago the rate was a third 
higher. 

Berlin is a surprise in a great many ways—in a 
multitude of ways, to speak strongly and be exact. 
It seems to be the most governed city in the world, 
but one must admit that it also seems to be the best 

246 






THE GERMAN CHICAGO 

governed. Method and system are observable on 
every hand—in great things, in little things, in all 
details, of whatsoever size. And it is not method 
and system on paper, and there an end—it is method 
and system in practice. It has a rule for every¬ 
thing, and puts the rule in force; puts it in force 
against the poor and powerful alike, without favor 
or prejudice. It deals with great matters and minute 
particulars with equal faithfulness, and with a plod¬ 
ding and painstaking diligence and persistency which 
compel admiration—and sometimes regret. There 
are several taxes, and they are collected quarterly. 
Collected is the word; they are not merely levied, 
they are collected—every time. This makes light 
taxes. It is in cities and countries where a consider¬ 
able part of the community shirk payment that taxes 
have to be lifted to a burdensome rate. Here the 
police keep coming, calmly and patiently, until you 
pay your tax. They charge you five or ten cents 
per visit after the first call. By experiment you will 
find that they will presently collect that money. 

In one respect the million and a half of Berlin’s 
population are like a family: the head of this large 
family knows the names of its several members, and 
where the said members are located, and when and 
where they were bom, and what they do for a living, 
and what their religious brand is. Whoever comes 
to Berlin must furnish these particulars to the police 
immediately; moreover, if he knows how long he is 
going to stay, he must say so. If he take a house 
he will be taxed on the rent and taxed also on his 
income. He will not be asked what his income is, 

17 247 






MARK TWAIN 


and so he may save some lies for home consumption. 
The police will estimate his income from the house- 
rent he pays, and tax him on that basis. 

Duties on imported articles are collected with 
inflexible fidelity, be the sum large or little; but the 
methods are gentle, prompt, and full of the spirit of 
accommodation. The postman attends to the whole 
matter for you, in cases where the article comes by 
mail, and you have no trouble and suffer no incon¬ 
venience. The other day a friend of mine was in¬ 
formed that there was a package in the post-office 
for him, containing a lady’s silk belt with gold clasp, 
and a gold chain to hang a bunch of keys on. In his 
first agitation he was going to try to bribe the post¬ 
man to chalk it through, but acted upon his sober 
second thought and allowed the matter to take its 
proper and regular course. In a little while the 
postman brought the package and made these several 
collections: duty on the silk belt, 7^ cents; duty on 
the gold chain, 10 cents; charge for fetching the pack¬ 
age, 5 cents. These devastating imposts are exacted 
for the protection of German home industries. 

The calm, quiet, courteous, cussed persistence of 
the police is the most admirable thing I have en¬ 
countered on this side. They undertook to persuade 
me to send and get a passport for a Swiss maid whom 
w r e had brought with us, and at the end of six weeks 
of patient, tranquil, angelic daily effort they suc¬ 
ceeded. I was not intending to give them trouble, 
but I was lazy and I thought they would get tired. 
Meanwhile they probably thought I would be the 
one. It turned out just so. 

248 


THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


One is not allowed to build unstable, unsafe, or 
unsightly houses in Berlin; the result is this comely 
and conspicuously stately city, with its security 
from conflagrations and breakdowns. It is built of 
architectural Gibraltars. The building commission¬ 
ers inspect while the building is going up. It has 
been found that this is better than to wait till it falls 
down. These people are full of whims. 

One is not allowed to cram poor folk into cramped 
and dirty tenement houses. Each individual must 
have just so many cubic feet of room-space, and 
sanitary inspections are systematic and frequent. 

Everything is orderly. The fire brigade march 
in rank, curiously uniformed, and so grave is their 
demeanor that they look like a Salvation Army 
under conviction of sin. People tell me that when 
a fire alarm is sounded, the firemen assemble calmly, 
answer to their names when the roll is called, then 
proceed to the fire. There they are ranked up, 
military fashion, and told off in detachments by the 
chief, who parcels out to the detachments the several 
parts of the work which they are to undertake in 
putting out that fire. This is all done with low¬ 
voiced propriety, and strangers think these people 
are working a funeral. As a rule, the fire is confined 
to a single floor in these great masses of bricks and 
masonry, and consequently there is little or no 
interest attaching to a fire here for the rest of the 
occupants of the house. 

There is abundance of newspapers in Berlin, and 
there was also a newsboy, but he died. At intervals 
of half a mile on the thoroughfares there are booths, 

1 7 249 






MARK TWAIN 


and it is at these that you buy your papers. There 
are plenty of theaters, but they do not advertise in 
a loud way. There are no big posters of any kind, 
and the display of vast type and of pictures of 
actors and performance framed on a big scale and 
done in rainbow colors is a thing unknown. If the 
big show-bills existed there would be no place to 
exhibit them; for there are no poster-fences, and one 
would not be allowed to disfigure dead walls with 
them. Unsightly things are forbidden here; Berlin 
is a rest to the eye. 

And yet the saunterer can easily find out what is 
going on at the theaters. All over the city, at short 
distances apart, there are neat round pillars eighteen 
feet high and about as thick as a hogshead, and on 
these the little black and white theater bills and 
other notices are posted. One generally finds a 
group around each pillar reading these things. 
There are plenty of things in Berlin worth importing 
to America. It is these that I have particularly 
wished to make a note of. When Buffalo Bill was 
here his biggest poster was probably not larger than 
the top of an ordinary trunk. 

There is a multiplicity of clean and comfortable 
horse-cars, but whenever you think you know where 
a car is going to you would better stop ashore, because 
that car is not going to that place at all. The car 
routes are marvelously intricate, and often the drivers 
get lost and are not heard of for years. The signs 
on the cars furnish no details as to the course of the 
journey; they name the end of it, and then experi¬ 
ment around to see how much territory they can 

250 


THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


cover before they get there. The conductor will 
collect your fare over again every few miles, and give 
you a ticket which he hasn’t apparently kept any 
record of, and you keep it till an inspector comes 
aboard by and by and tears a comer off it (which he 
does not keep), then you throw the ticket away and 
get ready to buy another. Brains are of no value 
when you are trying to navigate Berlin in a horse- 
car. When the ablest of Brooklyn’s editors was 
here on a visit he took a horse-car in the early morn¬ 
ing, and wore it out trying to go to a point in the 
center of the city. He was on board all day and 
spent many dollars in fares, and then did not arrive 
at the place which he had started to go to. This 
is the most thorough way to see Berlin, but it is 
also the most expensive. 

But there are excellent features about the car 
system, nevertheless. The car w T ill not stop for you 
to get on or off, except at certain places a block or 
two apart where there is a sign to indicate that that 
is a halting-station. This system saves many bones. 
There are twenty places inside the car; when these 
1 seats are filled, no more can enter. Four or five 
persons may stand on each platform—the law de¬ 
crees the number—and when these standing-places 
are all occupied the next applicant is refused. As 
there is no crowding, and as no rowdyism is allowed, 
women stand on the platforms as well as the men; 
they often stand there when there are vacant seats 
inside, for these places are comfortable, there being 
little or no jolting. A native tells me that when the 
first car was put on, thirty or forty years ago, the 

251 





MARK TWAIN 


public had such a terror of it that they didn’t feel 
safe inside of it, or outside either. They made the 
company keep a man at every crossing with a red 
flag in his hand. Nobody would travel in the car 
except convicts on the way to the gallows. This 
made business in only one direction, and the car had 
to go back light. To save the company, the city 
government transferred the convict cemetery to the 
other end of the line. This made traffic in both 
directions and kept the company from going under. 
This sounds like some of the information wffiich 
traveling foreigners are furnished with in America. 
To my mind it has a doubtful ring about it. 

The first-class cab is neat and trim, and has 
leather-cushion seats and a swift horse. The second- 
class cab is an ugly and lubberly vehicle, and is 
always old. It seems a strange thing that they have 
never built any new ones. Still, if such a thing were 
done everybody that had time to flock would flock 
to see it, and that would make a crowd, and the 
police do not like crowds and disorder here. If 
there were an earthquake in Berlin the police would 
take charge of it and conduct it in that sort of orderly 
way that would make you think it was a prayer¬ 
meeting. That is what an earthquake generally 
ends in, but this one would be different from those 
others; it would be kind of soft and self-contained, 
like a republican praying for a mugwump. 

For a course (a quarter of an hour or less), one 
pays twenty-five cents in a first-class cab, and fifteen 
cents in a second-class. The first-class will take you 
along faster, for the second-class horse is old— 


THE GERMAN CHICAGO 

always old—as old as his cab, some authorities say 
—and ill-fed and weak. He has been a first-class 
once, but has been degraded to second class for long 
and faithful service. 

Still, he must take you as jar for fifteen cents as 
the other horse takes you for twenty-five. If he 
can’t do his fifteen-minute distance in fifteen minutes, 
he must still do the distance for the fifteen cents. 
Any stranger can check the distance off—by means 
of the most curious map I am acquainted with. It 
is issued by the city government and can be bought 
in any shop for a trifle. In it every street is sectioned 
off like a string of long beads of different colors. 
Each long bead represents a minute’s travel, and 
when you have covered fifteen of the beads you have 
got your money’s worth. This map of Berlin is a 
gay-colored maze, and looks like pictures of the 
circulation of the blood. 

The streets are very clean. They are kept so— 
not by prayer and talk and the other New York 
methods, but by daily and hourly work with scrapers 
and brooms; and when an asphalted street has been 
tidily scraped after a rain or a light snowfall, they 
scatter clean sand over it. This saves some of the 
horses from falling down. In fact, this is a city 
government which seems to stop at no expense where 
the public convenience, comfort, and health are con¬ 
cerned—except in one detail. That is the naming 
of the streets and the numbering of the houses. 
Sometimes the name of a street will change in the 
middle of a block. You will not find it out till you 
ee t to the next comer and discover the new name on 

253 







MARK TWAIN 


the wall, and of course you don’t know just when 
the change happened. 

The names are plainly marked on the comers—on 
all the corners—there are no exceptions. But the 
numbering of the houses—there has never been any¬ 
thing like it since original chaos. It is not possible 
that it was done by this wise city government. At 
first one thinks it was done by an idiot; but there is 
too much variety about it for that; an idiot could 
not think of so many different ways of making con¬ 
fusion and propagating blasphemy. The numbers 
run up one side the street and down the other. That 
is endurable, but the rest isn’t. They often use one 
number for three or four houses—and sometimes 
they put the number on only one of the houses and 
let you guess at the others. Sometimes they put a 
number on a house—4, for instance—then put 4a, 
4 b, 4c, on the succeeding houses, and one becomes 
old and decrepit before he finally arrives at 5. A 
result of this systemless system is that when you are 
at No. 1 in a street you haven’t any idea how far 
it may be to No. 150; it may be only six or eight 
blocks, it may be a couple of miles. Frederick Street 
is long, and is one of the great thoroughfares. The 
other day a man put up his money behind the asser¬ 
tion that there were more refreshment places in that 
street than numbers on the houses—and he won. 
There were 254 numbers and 257 refreshment places. 
Yet as I have said, it is a long street. 

But the worst feature of all this complex business 
is that in Berlin the numbers do not travel in any 
one direction; no, they travel along until they get 

254 





THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


to 50 or 60, perhaps, then suddenly you find yourself 
up in the hundreds—140, maybe; the next will be 
139—then you perceive by that sign that the num¬ 
bers are now traveling toward you from the opposite 
direction. They will keep that sort of insanity up 
as long as you travel that street; every now and then 
the numbers will turn and run the other way. As a 
rule, there is an arrow under the number, to show by 
the direction of its flight which way the numbers 
are proceeding. There are a good many suicides in 
Berlin; I have seen six reported in a single day. 
There is always a deal of learned and laborious 
arguing and ciphering going on as to the cause of this 
state of things. If they will set to work and number 
their houses in a rational way perhaps they will find 
out what was the matter. 

More than a month ago Berlin began to prepare 
to celebrate Professor Virchow’s seventieth birthday. 
When the birthday arrived, the middle of October, 
it seemed to me that all the world of science arrived 
with it; deputation after deputation came, bringing 
the homage and reverence of far cities and centers 
of learning, and during the whole of a long day the 
hero of it sat and received such witness of his great¬ 
ness as has seldom been vouchsafed to any man in 
any walk of life in any time, ancient or modern. 
These demonstrations were continued in one form 
or another day after day, and were presently merged 
in similar demonstrations to his twin in science and 
achievement, Professor Helmholtz, whose seventieth 
birthday is separated from Virchow’s by only about 
three weeks; so nearly as this did these two extraor- 

255 



MARK TWAIN 


dinary men come to being bom together. Two such 
births have seldom signalized a single year in human 
history. 

But perhaps the final and closing demonstration 
was peculiarly grateful to them. This was a Com- 
mers given in their honor the other night by 1,000 
students. It was held in a huge hall, very long and 
very lofty, which had five galleries, far above every¬ 
body’s head, which were crowded with ladies—four 
or five hundred, I judged. 

It was beautifully decorated with clustered flags 
and various ornamental devices, and was brilliantly 
lighted. On the spacious floor of this place were 
ranged, in files, innumerable tables, seating twenty- 
four persons each, extending from one end of the 
great hall clear to the other, and with narrow aisles 
between the files. In the center on one side was a 
high and tastefully decorated platform twenty or 
thirty feet long, with a long table on it behind which 
sat the half-dozen chiefs of the givers of the Com- 
mers in the rich medieval costumes of as many 
different college corps. Behind these youths a band 
of musicians was concealed. On the floor directly 
in front of this platform were half a dozen tables 
which were distinguished from the outlying conti¬ 
nent of tables by being covered instead of left naked. 
Of these the central table was reserved for the two 
heroes of the occasion and twenty particularly emi¬ 
nent professors of the Berlin University, and the 
other covered tables were for the occupancy of a 
hundred less distinguished professors. 

I was glad to be honored with a place at the table 

256 




THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


of the two heroes of the occasion, although I was not 
really learned enough to deserve it. Indeed, there 
was a pleasant strangeness in being in such company; 
to be thus associated with twenty-three men who 
forget more every day than I ever knew. Yet there 
was nothing embarrassing about it, because loaded 
men and empty ones look about alike, and I knew 
that to that multitude there I was a professor. It 
required but little art to catch the ways and attitude 
of those men and imitate them, and I had no diffi¬ 
culty in looking as much like a professor as anybody 
there. 

We arrived early; so early that only Professors 
Virchow and Helmholtz and a dozen guests of the 
special tables were ahead of us, and three hun¬ 
dred or four hundred students. But people were 
arriving in floods now, and within fifteen minutes 
all but the special tables were occupied, and the 
great house was crammed, the aisles included. It 
was said that there were four thousand men pres¬ 
ent. It was a most animated scene, there is no 
doubt about that; it was a stupendous beehive. 
At each end of each table stood a corps student 
in the uniform of his corps. These quaint costumes 
are of brilliant colored silks and velvets, with some¬ 
times a high plumed hat, sometimes a broad Scotch 
cap, with a great plume wound about it, sometimes 
—oftenest—a little shallow silk cap on the tip of 
the crown, like an inverted saucer; sometimes the 
pantaloons are snow-white, sometimes of other col¬ 
ors; the boots in all cases come up well above the 
knee; and in all cases also white gauntlets are worn; 

257 




MARK TWAIN 

the sword is a rapier with a bowl-shaped guard 
for the hand, painted in several colors. Each corps 
has a uniform of its own, and all are of rich material, 
brilliant in color, and exceedingly picturesque; for 
they are survivals of the vanished costumes of the 
Middle Ages, and they reproduce for us the time 
when men were beautiful to look at. The student 
who stood guard at our end of the table was of 
grave countenance and great frame and grace of 
form, and he was doubtless an accurate reproduction, 
clothes and all, of some ancestor of his of two or 
three centuries ago—a reproduction as far as the 
outside, the animal man, goes, I mean. 

As I say, the place was now crowded. The nearest 
aisle was packed with students standing up, and 
they made a fence which shut off the rest of the house 
from view. As far down this fence as you could see 
all these wholesome young faces were turned in one 
direction, all these intent and worshiping eyes were 
centered upon one spot—the place where Virchow 
and Helmholtz sat. The boys seemed lost to every¬ 
thing, unconscious of their own existence; they de¬ 
voured these two intellectual giants with their eyes, 
they feasted upon them, and the worship that was 
in their hearts shone in their faces. It seemed to 
me that I would rather be flooded with a glory like 
that, instinct with sincerity, innocent of self-seeking, 
than win a hundred battles and break a million 
hearts. 

There was a big mug of beer in front of each of 
us, and more to come when wanted. There was also 
a quarto pamphlet containing the words of the songs 

258 



THE GERMAN CHICAGO 

to be sung. After the names of the officers of the 
feast were these words in large type: 

“Wahrend des Kommerses herrscht allgemeiner 
Burgfriede .” 

I was not able to translate this to my satisfaction, 
but a professor helped me out. This was his expla¬ 
nation: The students in uniform belong to different 
college corps; not all students belong to corps; none 
join the corps except those who enjoy fighting. The 
corps students fight duels with swords every week, 
one corps challenging another corps to furnish a cer¬ 
tain number of duelists for the occasion, and it r 
only on this battle-field that students of different 
corps exchange courtesies. In common life they do 
not drink with each other or speak. The above line 
now translates itself: there is truce during the Com- 
mers, war is laid aside and fellowship takes its place. 

Now the performance began. The concealed band 
played a piece of martial music; then there was a 
pause. The students on the platform rose to their 
feet, the middle one gave a toast to the Emperor, 
then all the house rose, mugs in hand. At the call 
'‘One—two—three!” all glasses were drained and 
then brought down with a slam on the tables in 
unison. The result was as good an imitation of 
thunder as I have ever heard. From now on, during 
an hour, there was singing, in mighty chorus. 
During each interval between songs a number of the 
special guests — the professors — arrived. There 
seemed to be some signal whereby the students on 
the platform were made aware that a professor had 

2 59 






MARK TWAIN 


arrived at the remote door of entrance; for you 
would see them suddenly rise to their feet, strike an 
erect military attitude, then draw their swords; the 
swords of all their brethren standing guard at the 
innumerable tables would flash from their scabbards 
and be held aloft—a handsome spectacle! Three 
clear bugle notes would ring out, then all these 
swords would come down with a crash, twice re¬ 
peated, on the tables, and be uplifted and held aloft 
again; then in the distance you would see the gay 
uniforms and uplifted swords of a guard of honor 
clearing the way and conducting the guest down to 
his place. The songs were stirring, the immense out¬ 
pour from young life and young lungs, the crash of 
swords and the thunder of the beer-mugs gradually 
worked a body up to what seemed the last possible 
summit of excitement. It surely seemed to me that 
I had reached that summit, that I had reached my 
limit, and that there was no higher lift desirable for 
me. When apparently the last eminent guest had 
long ago taken his place, again those three bugle 
blasts rang out and once more the swords leaped 
from their scabbards. Who might this late comer 
be? Nobody was interested to inquire. Still, indo¬ 
lent eyes were turned toward the distant entrance; 
we saw the silken gleam and the lifted swords of a 
guard of honor plowing through the remote crowds. 
Then we saw that end of the house rising to its feet; 
saw it rise abreast the advancing guard all along, like 
a wave. This supreme honor had been offered to 
no one before. Then there was an excited whisper 
at our table— “Mommsen!” and the whole house 

260 




THE GERMAN CHICAGO 


rose. Rose and shouted and stamped and clapped, 
and banged the beer-mugs. Just simply a storm! 
Then the little man with his long hair and Emer¬ 
sonian face edged his way past us and took his seat. 
I could have touched him with my hand—Mommsen! 
—think of it! 

This was one of those immense surprises that can 
happen only a few times in one’s life. I was not 
dreaming of him, he was to me only a giant myth, a 
world-shadowing specter, not a reality. The surprise 
of it all can be only comparable to a man’s suddenly 
coming upon Mont Blanc, with its awful form 
towering into the sky, when he didn’t suspect he was 
in its neighborhood. I would have walked a great 
many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, 
without trouble or tramp or cost of any kind. Here 
he was, clothed in a Titanic deceptive modesty which 
made him look like other men. Here he was, carry¬ 
ing the Roman world and all the Caesars in his hos¬ 
pitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other 
luminous vault, the skull of the universe, carries the 
Milky Way and the constellations. 

One of the professors said that once upon a time 
an American young lady was introduced to Momm¬ 
sen, and found herself badly scared and speechless. 
She dreaded to see his mouth unclose, for she was 
expecting him to choose a subject several miles above 
her comprehension, and didn’t suppose he could get 
down to the world that other people lived in; but 
when his remark came, her terrors disappeared: 
“Well, how do you do? Have you read Howells’s 
last book? I think it’s his best.” 

261 






MARK TWAIN 


The active ceremonies of the evening closed with 
the speeches of welcome delivered by two students 
and the replies made by Professors Virchow and 
Helmholtz. 

Virchow has long been a member of the city gov¬ 
ernment of Berlin. He works as hard for the city 
as does any other Berlin alderman, and gets the same 
pay—nothing. I don’t know that we in America 
could venture to ask our most illustrious citizen to 
serve in a board of aldermen, and if we might venture 
it I am not positively sure that we could elect him. 
But here the municipal system is such that the best 
men in the city consider it an honor to serve gratis 
as aldermen, and the people have the good sense to 
prefer these men and to elect them year after year. 
As a result Berlin is a thoroughly well-governed city. 
It is a free city; its affairs are not meddled with by 
the state; they are managed by its own citizens, and 
after methods of their own devising. 




CONCERNING THE JEWS 


S OME months ago I published a magazine article 
descriptive of a remarkable scene in the Im¬ 
perial Parliament in Vienna. Since then I have 
received from Jews in America several letters of in¬ 
quiry. They were difficult letters to answer, for 
they were not very definite. But at last I received a 
definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks 
the questions which the other writers probably be¬ 
lieved they were asking. By help of this text I will 
do the best I can to publicly answer this corre¬ 
spondent, and also the others—at the same time 
apologizing for having failed to reply privately. 
The lawyer’s letter reads as follows: 

I have read “Stirring Times in Austria.” One point in par¬ 
ticular is of vital import to not a few thousand people, including 
myself, being a point about which I have often wanted to address 
a question to some disinterested person. The show of military 
force in the Austrian Parliament, which precipitated the riots, 
was not introduced by any Jew. No Jew was a member of that 
body. No Jewish question was involved in the Ausglcich or in 
the language proposition. No Jew was insulting anybody. In 
short, no Jew was doing any mischief toward anybody whatso¬ 
ever, In fact, the Jews were the only ones of the nineteen differ¬ 
ent races in Austria which did not have a party—they are 
absolutely non-participants. Yet in your article you say that 
in the rioting which followed, all classes of people were unani- 
18 263 




MARK TWAIN 


motis only on one thing— viz., in being against the Jews. Now will 
you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the Jews have thus 
ever been, and are even now, in these days of supposed intelli¬ 
gence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities? I dare say that 
for centuries there has been no more quiet, undisturbing, and 
well-behaving citizens, as a class, than that same Jew. It seems 
to me that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone account for 
these horrible and unjust persecutions. 

Tell me, therefore, from your vantage-point of cold view, 
what in your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do any¬ 
thing to correct it either in America or abroad? Will it ever come 
to an end? Will a Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, 
and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has become of 
the golden rule? 

I will begin by saying that if I thought myself 
prejudiced against the Jew, I should hold it fairest 
to leave this subject to a person not crippled in that 
way. But I think I have no such prejudice. A few 
years ago a Jew observed to me that there was no 
uncourteous reference to his people in my books, and 
asked how it happened. It happened because the 
disposition was lacking. I am quite' sure that (bar 
one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have 
no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed 
prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any 
society. All that I care to know is that a man is a 
human being—that is enough for me; he can’t be 
any worse. I have no special regard for Satan; but 
I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against 
him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on 
account of his not having a fair show. All religions 
issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious 
things about him, but we never hear his side. We 
have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and 

264 


CONCERNING THE JEWS 

V 

yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, 
this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; 
it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could 
not have been condemned. Of course Satan has 
some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may 
be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said 
about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts 
I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can 
find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we 
ought to be willing to do for any one who is under 
a cloud. We may not pay him reverence, for that 
would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his 
talents. A person who has for untold centuries 
maintained the imposing position of spiritual head 
of four-fifths of the human race, and political head 
of the whole of it, must be granted the possession of 
executive abilities of the loftiest order. In his large 
presence the other popes and politicians shrink to 
midges for the microscope. I would like to see him. 
I would rather see him and shake him by the tail 
than any other member of the European Concert. 
In the present paper I shall allow myself to use the 
word Jew as if it stood for both religion and race. 
It is handy; and, besides, that is what the term means 
to the general world. 

In the above letter one notes these points: 

1. The Jew is a well-behaved citizen. 

2. Can ignorance and fanaticism alone account for 
his unjust treatment? 

3. Can Jews do anything to improve the situation? 

4. The Jews have no party; they are non-par¬ 
ticipants. 

18 


265 




MARK TWAIN 


5. Will the persecution ever come to an end? 

6. What has become of the golden rule? 

Point No. 1 .—We must grant proposition No. i, 
for several sufficient reasons. The Jew is not a 
disturber of the peace of any country. Even his 
enemies will concede that. He is not a loafer, he 
is not a sot, he is not noisy, he is not a brawler nor 
a rioter, he is not quarrelsome. In the statistics 
of crime his presence is conspicuously rare—in all 
countries. With murder and other crimes of violence 
he has but little to do: he is a stranger to the hang¬ 
man. In the police court’s daily long roll of “as¬ 
saults” and “drunk and disorderlies” his name 
seldom appears. That the Jewish home is a home 
in the truest sense is a fact which no one will dispute. 
The family is knitted together by the strongest 
affections; its members show each other every due 
respect; and reverence for the elders is an inviolate 
law of the house. The Jew is not a burden on the 
charities of the state nor of the city; these could 
cease from their functions without affecting him. 
When he is well enough, he works; when he is in¬ 
capacitated, his own people take care of him. And 
not in a poor and stingy way, but with a fine and 
large benevolence. His race is entitled to be called 
the most benevolent of all the races of men. A 
Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a 
thing may exist, but there are few men that can say 
they have seen that spectacle. The Jew has been 
staged in many uncomplimentary forms, but, so far as 
I know, no dramatist has done him the injustice to 
stage him as a beggar. Whenever a Jew has real 

266 



CONCERNING THE JEWS 

need to beg, his people save him from the necessity 
of doing it. The charitable institutions of the Jews 
are supported by Jewish money, and amply. The 
Jews make no noise about it; it is done quietly; they 
do not nag and pester and harass us for contribu¬ 
tions; they give us peace, and set us an example— 
an example which we have not found ourselves able 
to follow; for by nature we are not free givers, and 
have to be patiently and persistently hunted down 
in the interest of the unfortunate. 

These facts are all on the credit side of the propo¬ 
sition that the Jew is a good and orderly citizen. 
Summed up, they certify that he is quiet, peaceable, 
industrious, unaddicted to high crimes and brutal 
dispositions; that his family life is commendable; 
that he is not a burden upon public charities; that 
he is not a beggar; that in benevolence he is above 
the reach of competition. These are the very 
quintessential of good citizenship. If you can add 
that he is as honest as the average of his neigh¬ 
bors— But I think that question is affirmatively 
answered by the fact that he is a successful business 
man. The basis of successful business is honesty; 
a business cannot thrive where the parties to it 
cannot trust each other. In the matter of numbers 
the Jew counts for little in the overwhelming popu¬ 
lation of New York; but that his honesty counts for 
much is guaranteed by the fact that the immense 
wholesale business of Broadway, from the Battery 
to Union Square, is substantially in his hands. 

I suppose that the most picturesque example in 
history of a trader’s trust in his fellow-trader was 

2 67 





MARK TWAIN 


one where it was not Christian trusting Christian, but 
Christian trusting Jew. That Hessian Duke who 
used to sell his subjects to George III. to fight 
George Washington with got rich at it; and by and 
by, when the wars engendered by the French Revo¬ 
lution made his throne too warm for him, he was 
obliged to fly the country. He was in a hurry, and 
had to leave his earnings behind—nine million dol¬ 
lars. He had to risk the money with some one with¬ 
out security. He did not select a Christian, but a 
Jew—a Jew of only modest means, but of high 
character; a character so high that it left him lone¬ 
some—Rothschild of Frankfort. Thirty years later, 
when Europe had become quiet and safe again, the 
Duke came back from overseas, and the Jew re¬ 
turned the loan, with interest added. 1 

^ere is another piece of picturesque history; and it reminds us 
that shabbiness and dishonesty are not the monopoly of any race or 
creed, but are merely human: 

“Congress passed a bill to pay $379.56 to Moses Pendergrass, of 
Libertyville, Missouri. The story of the reason of this liberality is 
pathetically interesting, and shows the sort of pickle that an honest 
man may get into who undertakes to do an honest job of work for 
Uncle Sam. In 1886 Moses Pendergrass put in a bid for the con¬ 
tract to carry the mail on the route from Knob Lick to Libertyville 
and Coffman, thirty miles a day, from July 1, 1887, for one year. 
He got the postmaster at Knob Lick to write the letter for him, and 
while Moses intended that his bid should be $400, his scribe care¬ 
lessly made it $4. Moses got the contract, and did not find out 
about the mistake until the end of the first quarter, when he got 
his first pay. When he found at what rate he was working he was 
sorely cast down, and opened communication with the Post Office 
Department. The department informed him that he must either 
carry out his contract or throw it up, and that if he threw it up 
his bondsmen would have to pay the government $1,459.85 damages. 
So Moses carried out his contract, walked thirty miles every week¬ 
day for a year, and carried the mail, and received for his labor $4— 

268 



CONCERNING THE JEWS 

The Jew has his other side. He has some dis¬ 
creditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of 
them, because he cannot get entirely rid of vexatious 

Christian competition. We have seen that he sel¬ 
dom trangresses the laws against crimes of violence. 

Indeed, his dealings with courts are almost restricted 
to matters connected with commerce. He has a 
reputation for various small forms of cheating, and 
for practising oppressive usury, and for burning him¬ 
self out to get the insurance, and arranging for 
cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock 
the other man in, and for smart evasions which find 
him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter 
of the law, when court and jury know very well that 
he has violated the spirit of it. He is a frequent and 
faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he 
is charged with an unpatriotic disinclination to stand 
by the flag as a soldier—like the Christian Quaker. 

Now if you offset these discreditable features by 

or, to be accurate, $6.84; for, the route being extended after his bid 
was accepted, the pay was proportionately increased. Now, after 
ten years, a bill was finally passed to pay to Moses the difference 
between what he earned in that unlucky year and what he received.” 

The Sun, which tells the above story, says that bills were intro¬ 
duced in three or four Congresses for Moses’ relief, and that com¬ 
mittees repeatedly investigated his claim. 

It took six Congresses, containing in their persons the compressed 
virtues of 70,000,000 of people, and cautiously and carefully giving 
expression to those virtues in the fear of God and the next election, 
eleven years to find out some way to cheat a fellow-Christian out 
of about $13 on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly 
$300 due him on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During 
the same time they paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions—a third of 
it unearned and undeserved. This indicates a splendid all-around 
competency in theft, for it starts with farthings, and works its 
industries all the way up to ship-loads. It may be possible that the 
Jews can beat this, but the man that bets on it is taking chances. 

269 




MARK TWAIN 


the creditable ones summarized in a preceding para¬ 
graph beginning with the words, ‘ ‘ These facts are all 
on the credit side,” and strike a balance, what must 
the verdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and 
demerits being fairly weighed and measured on both 
sides, the Christian can claim no superiority over the 
Jew in the matter of good citizenship. 

Yet, in all countries, from the dawn of history, 
the Jew has been persistently and implacably hated, 
and with frequency persecuted. 

Point No. 2 —“Can fanaticism alone account for 
this?” 

Years ago I used to think that it was responsible 
for nearly all of it, but latterly I have come to think 
that this was an error. Indeed, it is now my con¬ 
viction that it is responsible for hardly any of it. 
In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter 
xlvii. 

We have all thoughtfully—or unthoughtfully— 
read the pathetic story of the years of plenty and 
the years of famine in Egypt, and how Joseph, with 
that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, 
and the crusts of the poor, and human liberty—a 
corner whereby he took a nation’s money all away, 
to the last penny; took a nation’s land away, to 
the last acre; then took the nation itself, buying 
it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child 
by child, till all were slaves; a corner which took 
everything, left nothing; a corner so stupendous 
that, by comparison with it, the most gigantic 
corners in subsequent history are but baby things, 
for it dealt in hundreds of millions of bushels, and 

270 



CONCERNING THE JEWS 

its profits were reckonable by hundreds of millions 
of dollars, and it was a disaster so crushing that its 
effects have not wholly disappeared from Egypt to¬ 
day, more than three thousand years after the event. 

Is it presumable that the eye of Egypt was upon 
Joseph, the foreign Jew, all this time? I think it 
likely. Was it friendly? We must doubt it. Was 
Joseph establishing a character for his race which 
would survive long in Egypt? And in time would 
his name come to be familiarly used to express 
that character—like Shylock’s? It is hardly to be 
doubted. Let us remember that this was centuries 
before the crucifixion. 

I wish to come down eighteen hundred years later 
and refer to a remark made by one of the Latin 
historians. I read it in a translation many years 
ago, and it comes back to me now with force. It 
was alluding to a time when people were still living 
who could have seen the Saviour in the flesh. 
Christianity was so new that the people of Rome 
had hardly heard of it, and had but confused notions 
of what it was. The substance of the remark was 
this: Some Christians were persecuted in Rome 
through error, they being “mistaken for Jews .” 

The meaning seems plain. These pagans had 
nothing against Christians, but they were quite 
ready to persecute Jews. For some reason or other 
they hated a Jew before they even knew what a 
Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the 
persecution of Jews is a thing which antedates 
Christianity and was not bom of Christianity? I 
think so. What was the origin of the feeling? 

271 




MARK TWAIN 


When I was a boy, in the back settlements of the 
Mississippi Valley, where a gracious and beautiful 
Sunday-school simplicity and unpracticality pre¬ 
vailed, the “Yankee” (citizen of the New England 
states) was hated with a splendid energy. But re¬ 
ligion had nothing to do with it. In a trade, the 
Yankee was held to be about five times the match 
of the Westerner. His shrewdness, his insight, his 
judgment, his knowledge, his enterprise, and his 
formidable cleverness in applying these forces were 
frankly confessed, and most competently cursed. 

In the cotton states, after the war, the simple and 
ignorant negroes made the crops for the white 
planter on shares. The Jew came down in force, set 
up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro’s 
wants on credit, and at the end of the season was 
proprietor of the negro’s share of the present crop 
and of part of his share of the next one. Before 
long, the whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful 
if the negro loved him. 

The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The 
reason is not concealed. The movement was in¬ 
stituted because the Christian peasant and villager 
stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He 
was always ready to lend money on a crop, and sell 
vodka and other necessaries of life on credit while 
the crop was growing. When settlement day came 
he owned the crop; and next year or year after he 
owned the farm, like Joseph. 

In the dull and ignorant England of John’s time 
everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered 
all lucrative enterprises into his hands; he was the 

272 


CONCERNING THE JEWS 

king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all 
profitable ways; he even financed crusades for the 
rescue of the Sepulcher. To wipe out his account 
with the nation and restore business to its natural 
and incompetent channels he had to be banished the 
realm. 

For the like reasons Spain had to banish him 
four hundred years ago, and Austria about a couple 
of centuries later. 

In all the ages Christian Europe has been obliged 
to curtail his activities. If he entered upon a 
mechanical trade, the Christian had to retire from it. 
If he set up as a doctor, he was the best one, and 
he took the business. If he exploited agriculture, 
the other farmers had to get at something else. 
Since there was no way to successfully compete with 
him in any vocation, the law had to step in and save 
the Christian from the poorhouse. Trade after 
trade was taken away from the Jew by statute till 
practically none was left. He was forbidden to 
engage in agriculture; he was forbidden to practise 
law; he was forbidden to practise medicine, except 
among Jews; he was forbidden the handicrafts. 
Even the seats of learning and the schools of science 
had to be closed against this tremendous antagonist. 
Still, almost bereft of employments, he found ways 
to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways 
to invest his takings well, for usury was not denied 
him. In the hard conditions suggested, the Jew 
without brains could not survive, and the Jew with 
brains had to keep them in good training and well 
sharpened up, or starve. Ages of restriction to the 

2 73 






MARK TWAIN 


one tool which the law was not able to take from 
him—his brain—have made that tool singularly 
competent; ages of compulsory disuse of his hands 
have atrophied them, and he never uses them now. 
This history has a very, very commercial look, a 
most sordid and practical commercial look, the busi¬ 
ness aspect of a Chinese cheap-labor crusade. Re¬ 
ligious prejudices may account for one part of it, 
but not for the other nine. 

Protestants have persecuted Catholics, but they 
did not take their livelihoods away from them. The 
Catholics have persecuted the Protestants with 
bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed 
agriculture and the handicrafts against them. Why 
was that? That has the candid look of genuine 
religious persecution, not a trade-union boycott in a 
religious disguise. 

The Jews are harried and obstructed in Austria 
and Germany, and lately in France; but England 
and America give them an open field and yet survive. 
Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but 
there are not many takers. There are a few Jews 
in Glasgow, and one in Aberdeen; but that is because 
they can’t earn enough to get away. The Scotch pay 
themselves that compliment, but it is authentic. 

I feel convinced that the Crucifixion has not much 
to do with the world’s attitude toward the Jew; that 
the reasons for it are older than that event, as sug¬ 
gested by Egypt’s experience and by Rome’s regret 
for having persecuted an unknown quantity called a 
Christian, under the mistaken impression that she 
was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew—a 

274 


CONCERNING THE JEWS 

skinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am 
persuaded that in Russia, Austria, and Germany 
nine-tenths of the hostility to the Jew comes from 
the average Christian’s inability to compete success¬ 
fully with the average Jew in business—in either 
straight business or the questionable sort. 

In Berlin, a few years ago, I read a speech which 
frankly urged the expulsion of the Jews from Ger¬ 
many; and the agitator’s reason was as frank as his 
proposition. It was this: that eighty-five per cent . of 
the successful lawyers of Berlin were Jews, and that 
about the same percentage of the great and lucrative 
businesses of all sorts in Germany were in the hands 
of the Jewish race! Isn’t it an amazing confession? 
It was but another way of saying that in a popula¬ 
tion of 48,000,000, of whom only 500,000 were 
registered as Jews, eighty-five per cent, of the brains 
and honesty of the whole was lodged in the Jews. 
I must insist upon the honesty—it is an essential 
of successful business, taken by and large. Of 
course it does not rule out rascals entirely, even 
among Christians, but it is a good working rule, 
nevertheless. The speaker’s figures may have been 
inexact, but the motive of persecution stands out as 
clear as day. 

The man claimed that in Berlin the banks, the 
newspapers, the theaters, the great mercantile, 
shipping, mining, and manufacturing interests, the 
big army and city contracts, the tramways, and 
pretty much all other properties of high value, and 
also the small businesses—were in the hands of the 
Jews. He said the Jew was pushing the Christian 

275 




MARK TWAIN 


to the wall all along the line; that it was all a 
Christian could do to scrape together a living; and 
that the Jew must be banished, and soon—there was 
no other way of saving the Christian. Here in 
Vienna, last autumn, an agitator said that all these 
disastrous details were true of Austria-Hungary 
also; and in fierce language he demanded the ex¬ 
pulsion of the Jews. When politicians come out 
without a blush and read the baby act in this frank 
way, unrebuked , it is a very good indication that 
they have a market back of them, and know where 
to fish for votes. 

You note the crucial point of the mentioned 
agitation; the argument is that the Christian cannot 
compete with the Jew, and that hence his very bread 
is in peril. To human beings this is a much more 
hate-inspiring thing than is any detail connected 
with religion. With most people, of a necessity, 
bread and meat take first rank, religion second. I 
am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not 
due in any large degree to religious prejudice. 

No, the Jew is a money-getter; and in getting his 
money he is a very serious obstruction to less 
capable neighbors who are on the same quest. I 
think that that is the trouble. In estimating worldly 
values the Jew is not shallow, but deep. With 
precocious wisdom he found out in the morning of 
time that some men worship rank, some worship 
heroes, some worship power, some worship God, and 
that over these ideals they dispute and cannot unite 
—but that they all worship money; so he made it 
the end and aim of his life to get it. He was at 

276 



CONCERNING THE JEWS 

0 

it in Egypt thirty-six centuries ago; he was at it in 
Rome when that Christian got persecuted by mistake 
for him; he has been at it ever since. The cost to 
him has been heavy; his success has made the whole 
human race his enemy—but it has paid, for it has 
brought him envy, and that is the only thing which 
men will sell both soul and body to get. He long 
ago observed that a millionaire commands respect, 
a two-millionaire homage, a multi-millionaire the 
deepest deeps of adoration. We all know that 
feeling; we have seen it express itself. We have 
noticed that when the average man mentions the 
name of a multi-millionaire he does it with that 
mixture in his voice of awe and reverence and lust 
which bums in a Frenchman’s eye when it falls on 
another man’s centime. 

Point No. 4 .—“The Jews have no party; they are 
non-participants. ’ ’ 

Perhaps you have let the secret out and given 
yourself away. It seems hardly a credit to the race 
that it is able to say that; or to you, sir, that you 
can say it without remorse; more, that you should 
offer it as a plea against maltreatment, injustice, and 
oppression. Who gives the Jew the right, who gives 
any race the right, to sit still, in a free country, 
and let somebody else look after its safety? The 
oppressed Jew was entitled to all pity in the former 
times under brutal autocracies, for he was weak and 
friendless, and had no way to help his case. But 
he has ways now, and he has had them for a century, 
but I do not see that he has tried to make serious 
use of them. When the Revolution set him free in . 

277 





MARK TWAIN 


France it was an act of grace—the grace of other 
people; he does not appear in it as a helper. I do 
not know that he helped when England set him free. 
Among the Twelve Sane Men of France who have 
stepped forward with great Zola at their head to 
fight (and win, I hope and believe 1 ) the battle for 
the most infamously misused Jew of modern times, 
do you find a great or rich or illustrious Jew helping? 
In the United States he was created free in the 
beginning—he did not need to help, of course. In 
Austria, and Germany, and France he has a vote, 
but of what considerable use is it to him? He 
doesn’t seem to know how to apply it to the best 
effect. With all his splendid capacities and all his 
fat wealth he is to-day not politically important in 
any country. In America, as early as 1854, the 
ignorant Irish hod-carrier, who had a spirit of his 
own and a way of exposing it to the weather, made 
it apparent to all that he must be politically reckoned 
with; yet fifteen years before that we hardly knew 
what an Irishman looked like. As an intelligent 
force, and numerically, he has always been away 
down, but he has governed the country just the 
same. It was because he was organized. It made 
his vote valuable—in fact, essential. 

You will say the Jew is everywhere numerically 
feeble. That is nothing to the point—with the 
Irishman’s history for an object-lesson. But I am 
coming to your numerical feebleness presently. In 
all parliamentary countries you could no doubt elect 
Jews to the legislatures—and even one member in 

1 The article was written in the summer of 1898 .—Editor, 

278 






CONCERNING THE JEWS 

such a body is sometimes a force which counts. 
How deeply have you concerned yourselves about 
this in Austria, France, and Germany? Or even in 
America for that matter ? You remark that the Jews 
were not to blame for the riots in this Reichsrath 
here, and you add with satisfaction that there wasn’t 
one in that body. That is not strictly correct; if it 
were, would it not be in order for you to explain it 
and apologize for it, not try to make a merit of it? 
But I think that the Jew was by no means in as large 
force there as he ought to have been, with his 
chances. Austria opens the suffrage to him on fairly 
liberal terms, and it must surely be his own fault 
that he is so much in the background politically. 

As to your numerical weakness. I mentioned 
some figures awhile ago—500,000—as the Jewish 
population of Germany. I will add some more— 

6,000,000 in Russia, 5,000,000 in Austria, 250,000 

« 

in the United States. I take them from memory; 
I read them in the Encyclopaedia Britannica about 
ten years ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them. 
If those statistics are correct, my argument is not 
as strong as it ought to be as concerns America, 
but it still has strength. It is plenty strong enough 
as concerns Austria, for ten years ago 5,000,000 
was nine per cent, of the empire’s population. 
The Irish would govern the Kingdom of Heaven if 
they had a strength there like that. 

I have some suspicions; I got them at second hand, 
but they have remained with me these ten or twelve 
years. When I read in the E. B. that the Jewish 
population of the United States was 250,000, I 
19 279 




MARK TWAIN 


wrote the editor, and explained to him that I was 
personally acquainted with more Jews than that in 
my country, and that his figures were without doubt 
a misprint for 25,000,000. I also added that I was 
personally acquainted with that many there; but 
that was only to raise his confidence in me, for it 
was not true. His answer miscarried, and I never 
got it; but I went around talking about the matter, 
and people told me they had reason to suspect that 
for business reasons many Jews whose dealings were 
mainly with the Christians did not report them¬ 
selves as Jews in the census. It looked plausible; it 
looks plausible yet. Look at the city of New York; 
and look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New 
Orleans, and Chicago, and Cincinnati, and San 
Francisco—how your race swarms in those places!— 
and everywhere else in America, down to the least 
little village. Read the signs on the marts of com¬ 
merce and on the shops: Goldstein (gold stone), 
Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal (flower-vale), 
Rosenthal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violet odor), 
Singvogel (song-bird), Rosenzweig (rose branch), and 
all the amazing list of beautiful and enviable names 
which Prussia and Austria glorified you with so long 
ago. It is another instance of Europe’s coarse and 
cruel persecution of your race; not that it was coarse 
and cruel to outfit it with pretty and poetical names 
like those, but that it was coarse and cruel to make 
it pay for them or else take such hideous and often 
indecent names that to-day their owners never use 
them; or, if they do, only on official papers. And 
it was the many, not the few, who got the odious 

280 



CONCERNING THE JEWS 

names, they being too poor to bribe the officials to 
grant them better ones. 

Now why was the race renamed? I have been 
told that in Prussia it was given to using fictitious 
names, and often changing them, so as to beat the 
tax-gatherer, escape military service, and so on; and 
that finally the idea was hit upon of furnishing all 
the inmates of a house with one and the same surname , 
and then holding the house responsible right along 
for those inmates, and accountable for any disap¬ 
pearances that might occur; it made the Jews keep 
track of each other , for self-interest’s sake, and saved 
the government the trouble. 1 

If that explanation of how the Jews of Prussia 
came to be renamed is correct, if it is true that they 
fictitiously registered themselves to gain certain ad¬ 
vantages, it may possibly be true that in America 
they refrain from registering themselves as Jews to 
fend off the damaging prejudices of the Christian 
customer. I have no way of knowing whether this 
notion is well founded or not. There may be other 
and better ways of explaining why only that poor 
little 250,000 of our Jews got into the Encyclopaedia. 
I may, of course, be mistaken, but I am strongly 


*111 Austria the renaming was merely done because the Jews in 
some newly acquired regions had no surnames, but were mostly 
named Abraham and Moses, and therefore the tax-gatherer could 
not tell t’other from which, and was likely to lose his reason over 
the matter. The renaming was put into the hands of the War 
Department, and a charming mess the graceless young lieutenants 
made of it. To them a Jew was of no sort of consequence, and they 
labeled the race in a way to make the angels weep. As an example 
take these two! Abraham Bellyache and Schmul Godbedamned .— 
Culled from “ Namens Studien ,” by Karl Emil Franzos. 

19 281 


MARK TWAIN 


of the opinion that we have an immense Jewish 
population in America. 

Point No. j .—“Can Jews do anything to improve 
the situation?” 

I think so. If I may make a suggestion without 
seeming to be trying to teach my grandmother how 
to suck eggs, I will offer it. In our days we have 
learned the value of combination. We apply it 
everywhere—in railway systems, in trusts, in trade- 
unions, in Salvation Armies, in minor politics, in 
major politics, in European Concerts. Whatever 
our strength may be, big or little, we organize it. 
We have found out that that is the only way to get 
the most out of it that is in it. We know the weak¬ 
ness of individual sticks, and the strength of the 
concentrated fagot. Suppose you try a scheme like 
this, for instance. In England and America put 
every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you 
have not been doing that). Get up volunteer 
regiments composed of Jews solely, and, when the 
drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to re¬ 
move the reproach that you have few Massenas 
among you, and that you feed on a country but 
don’t like to fight for it. Next, in politics, organise 
your strength, band together, and deliver the casting 
vote where you can, and, where you can’t, compel as 
good terms as possible. You huddle to yourselves 
already in all countries, but you huddle to no suffi¬ 
cient purpose, politically speaking. You do not 
seem to be organized, except for your charities. 
There you are omnipotent; there you compel your 
due of recognition—you do not have to beg for it. 

282 




CONCERNING THE JEWS 

It shows what you can do when you band together 
for a definite purpose. 

And then from America and England you can 
encourage your race in Austria, France, and Ger¬ 
many, and materially help it. It was a pathetic 
tale that was told by a poor Jew in Galicia a fortnight 
ago during the riots, after he had been raided by 
the Christian peasantry and despoiled of everything 
he had. He said his vote was of no value to him, 
and he wished he could be excused from casting it, 
for indeed casting it was a sure damage to him, since 
no matter which party he voted for, the other party 
would come straight and take its revenge out of him. 
Nine per cent, of the population of the empire, these 
Jews, and apparently they cannot put a plank into 
any candidate’s platform! If you will send our 
Irish lads over here I think they will organize your 
race and change the aspect of the Reichsrath. 

You seem to think that the Jews take no hand 
in politics here, that they are “absolutely non¬ 
participants.” I am assured by men competent to 
speak that this is a very large error, that the Jews 
are exceedingly active in politics all over the em¬ 
pire, but that they scatter their work and their votes 
among the numerous parties, and thus lose the ad¬ 
vantages to be had by concentration. I think that 
in America they scatter too, but you know more 
about that than I do. 

Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear 
insight into the value of that. Have you heard of 
his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of the 
world together in Palestine, with a government of 

283 


MARK TWAIN 


their own—under the suzerainty of the Sultan, I sup¬ 
pose. At the convention of Berne, last year, there 
were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal 
was received with decided favor. I am not the 
Sultan, and I am not objecting; but if that concen¬ 
tration of the cunningest brains in the world was 
going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), 
I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be 
well to let that race find out its strength. If the 
horses knew theirs, we should not ride any more. 

Point No. 5.—“Will the persecution of the Jews 
ever come to an end?” 

On the score of religion, I think it has already come 
to an end. On the score of race prejudice and 
trade, I have the idea that it will continue. That 
is, here and there in spots about the world, where a 
barbarous ignorance and a sort of mere animal 
civilization prevail; but I do not think that else¬ 
where the Jew need now stand in any fear of being 
robbed and raided. Among the high civilizations 
he seems to be very comfortably situated indeed, and 
to have more than his proportionate share of the 
prosperities going. It has that look in Vienna. I 
suppose the race prejudice cannot be removed; but 
he can stand that; it is no particular matter. By 
his make and ways he is substantially a foreigner 
wherever he may be, and even the angels dislike a 
foreigner. I am using this word foreigner in the 
German sense— stranger. Nearly all of us have an 
antipathy to a stranger, even of our own nationality. 
We pile gripsacks in a vacant seat to keep him from 
getting it; and a dog goes further, and does as a 

2S4 


CONCERNING THE JEWS 

savage would—challenges him on the spot. The 
German dictionary seems to make no distinction 
between a stranger and a foreigner; in its view a 
stranger is a foreigner—a sound position, I think. 
You will always be by ways and habits and pred¬ 
ilections substantially strangers—foreigners—wher¬ 
ever you are, and that will probably keep the race 
prejudice against you alive. 

But you were the favorites of Heaven originally, 
and your manifold and unfair prosperities convince 
me that you have crowded back into that snug place 
again. Here is an incident that is significant. Last 
week in Vienna a hail-storm struck the prodigious 
Central Cemetery and made wasteful destruction 
there. In the Christian part of it, according to 
the official figures, 621 window-panes were broken; 
more than 900 singing-birds were killed; five great 
trees and many small ones were torn to shreds and 
the shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; 
the ornamental plants and other decorations of the 
graves were ruined, and more than a hundred tomb- 
lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery’s whole 
force of 300 laborers more than three days to clear 
away the storm’s wreckage. In the report occurs 
this remark—and in its italics you can hear it 
grit its Christian teeth: “. . . lediglich die isracl- 
itische Abtheilung des Friedhofes vom Hagelwetter 
ganrtich verschont worden war.” Not a hailstone 
hit the Jewish reservation! Such nepotism makes 
me tired. 

Point No. 6 .—“What has become of the golden 
rule?” 


285 





MARK TWAIN 


It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken 
care of. It is Exhibit A in the Church’s assets, and 
we pull it out every Sunday and give it an airing. 
But you are not permitted to try to smuggle it into 
this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not 
feel at home. It is strictly religious furniture, like 
an acolyte, or a contribution-plate, or any of those 
things. It has never been intruded into business; 
and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it 
is a business passion. 

To conclude .—If the statistics are right, the Jews 
constitute but one per cent, of the human race. It 
suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the 
blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought 
hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always 
been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as 
any other people, and his commercial importance is 
extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of 
his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of 
great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, 
medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of 
proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has 
made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; 
and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He 
could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The 
Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, 
filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded 
to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the 
Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they 
are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held 
their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and 
they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Tew 

286 


CONCERNING THE JEWS 

saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he 
always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities 
of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his 
energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. 
All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces 
pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his 
immortality ? 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 


THE MODERN STEAMER AND THE OBSOLETE 

STEAMER 

E are victims of one common superstition— 



the superstition that we realize the changes 


that are daily taking place in the world because we 
read about them and know what they are. I should 
not have supposed that the modern ship could be 
a surprise to me, but it is. It seems to be as much 
of a surprise to me as it could have been if I had 
never read anything about it. I walk about this 
great vessel, the Havel, as she plows her way through 
the Atlantic, and every detail that comes under my 
eye brings up the miniature counterpart of it as it 
existed in the little ships I crossed the ocean in four¬ 
teen, seventeen, eighteen, and twenty years ago. 

In the Havel one can be in several respects more 
comfortable than he can be in the best hotels on the 
continent of Europe. For instance, she has several 
bathrooms, and they are as convenient and as nicely 
equipped as the bathrooms in a fine private house 
in America; whereas in the hotels of the Continent 
one bathroom is considered sufficient, and it is gen¬ 
erally shabby and located in some out-of-the-way 
corner of the house; moreover, you need to give 
notice so long beforehand that you get over wanting 


288 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 


a bath by the time you get it. In the hotels there 
are a good many different kinds of noises, and they 
spoil sleep; in my room in the ship I hear no sounds. 
In the hotels they usually shut off the electric light 
at midnight; in the ship one may burn it in one’s 
room all night. 

In the steamer Batavia , twenty years ago, one 
candle, set in the bulkhead between two staterooms, 
was there to light both rooms, but did not light either 
of them. It was extinguished at eleven at night, and 
so were all the saloon lamps except one or two, which 
were left burning to help the passenger see how to 
break his neck trying to get around in the dark. 
The passengers sat at table on long benches made of 
the hardest kind of wood; in the Havel one sits on a 
swivel chair with a cushioned back to it. In those 
old times the dinner bill of fare was always the same: 
a pint of some simple, homely soup or other, boiled 
codfish and potatoes, slab of boiled beef, stewed 
prunes for dessert—on Sundays “dog in a blanket,” 
on Thursdays “plum duff.” In the modern ship 
the menu is choice and elaborate, and is changed 
daily. In the old times dinner was a sad occasion; 
in our day a concealed orchestra enlivens it with 
charming music. In the old days the decks were 
always wet; in our day they are usually dry, for the 
promenade-deck is roofed over, and a sea seldom 
comes aboard. In a moderately disturbed sea, in 
the old days, a landsman could hardly keep his legs, 
but in such a sea in our day the decks are as level as 
a table. In the old days the inside of a ship was the 
plainest and barrenest thing, and the most dismal 

289 






MARK TWAIN 


and uncomfortable that ingenuity could devise; the 
modern ship is a marvel of rich and costly decora¬ 
tion and sumptuous appointment, and is equipped 
with every comfort and convenience that money can 
buy. The old ships had no place of assembly but 
the dining-room, the new ones have several spacious 
and beautiful drawing-rooms. The old ships offered 
the passenger no chance to smoke except in the place 
that was called the “fiddle.” It was a repulsive den 
made of rough boards (full of cracks) and its office 
was to protect the main hatch. It was grimy and 
dirty; there were no seats; the only light was a lamp 
of the rancid oil-and-rag kind; the place was very 
cold, and never dry, for the seas broke in through the 
cracks every little while and drenched the cavern 
thoroughly. In the modern ship there are three or 
four large smoking-rooms, and they have card- 
tables and cushioned sofas, and are heated by steam 
and lighted by electricity. There are few European 
hotels with such smoking-rooms. 

The former ships were built of wood, and had two 
or three water-tight compartments in the hold with 
doors in them which were often left open, particu¬ 
larly when the ship was going to hit a rock. The 
modern leviathan is built of steel, and the water¬ 
tight bulkheads have no doors in them; they divide 
the ship into nine or ten water-tight compartments 
and endow her with as many lives as a cat. Their 
complete efficiency was established by the happy 
results following the memorable accident to the City 
of Paris a year or two ago. 

One curious thing which is at once noticeable in 

290 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

the great modern ship is the absence of hubbub, 
clatter, rush of feet, roaring of orders. That is all 
gone by. The elaborate manoeuvers necessary in 
working the vessel into her dock are conducted with¬ 
out sounds; one sees nothing of the processes, hears 
no commands. A Sabbath stillness and solemnity 
reign, in place of the turmoil and racket of the earlier 
days. The modern ship has a spacious bridge fenced 
chin-high with sail-cloth and floored with wooden 
gratings; and this bridge, with its fenced fore-and-aft 
annexes, could accommodate a seated audience of a 
hundred and fifty men. There are three steering 
equipments, each competent if the others should 
break. From the bridge the ship is steered, and also 
handled. The handling is not done by shout or 
whistle, but by signaling with patent automatic 
gongs. There are three telltales, with plainly let¬ 
tered dials—for steering, handling the engines, and 
for communicating orders to the invisible mates who 
are conducting the landing of the ship or casting off. 
The officer who is astern is out of sight and too far 
away to hear trumpet-calls; but the gongs near him 
tell him to haul in, pay out, make fast, let go, and 
so on; he hears, but the passengers do not, and so 
the ship seems to land herself without human help. 

This great bridge is thirty or forty feet above the 
water, but the sea climbs up there sometimes; so 
there is another bridge twelve or fifteen feet higher 
still, for use in these emergencies. The force of 
water is a strange thing. It slips between one’s 
fingers like air, but upon occasion it acts like a solid 
body and will bend a thin iron rod. In the Havel 

291 




MARK TWAIN 




it has splintered a heavy oaken rail into broom- 
straws instead of merely breaking it in two, as would 
have been the seemingly natural thing for it to do. 
At the time of the awful Johnstown disaster, accord¬ 
ing to the testimony of several witnesses, rocks were 
carried some distance on the surface of the stu¬ 
pendous torrent; and at St. Helena, many years ago, 
a vast sea-wave carried a battery of cannon forty 
feet up a steep slope and deposited the guns there 
in a row. But the water has done a still stranger 
thing, and it is one which is credibly vouched for. 
A marlin-spike is an implement about a foot long 
which tapers from its butt to the other extremity 
and ends in a sharp point. It is made of iron and 
is heavy. A wave came aboard a ship in a storm 
and raged aft, breast high, carrying a marlin-spike 
point first with it, and with such lightning-like swift¬ 
ness and force as to drive it three or four inches into 
a sailor’s body and kill him. 

In all ways the ocean greyhound of to-day is im¬ 
posing and impressive to one who carries in his head 
no ship pictures of a recent date. In bulk she comes 
near to rivaling the Ark; yet this monstrous mass of 
steel is driven five hundred miles through the waves 
in twenty-four hours. I remember the brag run of 
a steamer which I traveled in once on the Pacific— 
it was two hundred and nine miles in twenty-four 
hours; a year or so later I was a passenger in the 
excursion tub Quaker City , and on one occasion in a 
level and glassy sea it was claimed that she reeled 
off two hundred and eleven miles between noon and 
noon, but it was probably a campaign lie. That 

292 





ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

little steamer had seventy passengers, and a crew of 
forty men, and seemed a good deal of a beehive. 
But in this present ship we are living in a sort of 
solitude, these soft summer days, with sometimes a 
hundred passengers scattered about the spacious 
distances, and sometimes nobody in sight at all; yet, 
hidden somewhere in the vessel’s bulk, there are 
(including crew) near eleven hundred people. 

The stateliest lines in the literature of the sea are 
S these: 

Britannia needs no bulwarks, no towers along the steep— 
Her march is o’er the mountain waves, her home is on 
the deep! 

There it is. In those old times the little ships 
climbed over the waves and wallowed down into the 
trough on the other side; the giant ship of our day 
does not climb over the waves, but crushes her way 
through them. Her formidable weight and mass and 
impetus give her mastery over any but extraordinary 
storm waves. 

The ingenuity of man! I mean in this passing 
generation. To-day I found in the chart-room a 
frame of removable wooden slats on the wall, and 
on the slats was painted uninforming information 
like this 


Trim-Tank.Empty 

Double-Bottom No. i.Full 

Double-Bottom No. 2.Full 

Double-Bottom No. 3.Full 

Double-Bottom No. 4.Full 


While I was trying to think out what kind of a 
game this might be and how a stranger might best 

293 









MARK TWAIN 


go to work to beat it, a sailor came in and pulled out 
the “Empty” end of the first slat and put it back 
with its reverse side to the front, marked “Full.” 
He made some other change, I did not notice what. 
The slat-frame was soon explained. Its function 
was to indicate how the ballast in the ship was dis¬ 
tributed. The striking thing was that the ballast 
was water. I did not know that a ship had ever 
been ballasted with water. I had merely read, some 
time or other, that such an experiment was to be 
tried. But that is the modern way; between the 
experimental trial of a new thing and its adoption, 
there is no wasted time, if the trial proves its value. 

On the wall, near the slat-frame, there was an 
outline drawing of the ship, and this betrayed the 
fact that this vessel has twenty-two considerable 
lakes of water in her. These lakes are in her bottom; 
they are imprisoned between her real bottom and a 
false bottom. They are separated from each other, 
thwartships, by water-tight bulkheads, and separated 
down the middle by a bulkhead running from the 
bow four-fifths of the way to the stern. It is a chain 
of lakes four hundred feet long and from five to 
seven feet deep. Fourteen of the lakes contain fresh¬ 
water brought from shore, and the aggregate weight 
of it is four hundred tons. The rest of the lakes 
contain salt-water—six hundred and eighteen tons. 
Upward of a thousand tons of water, altogether. 

Think how handy this ballast is. The ship leaves 
port with the lakes all full. As she lightens forward 
through consumption of coal, she loses trim— her 
head rises, her stern sinks down. Then they spill 

294 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 


one of the sternward lakes into the sea, and the trim 
is restored. This can be repeated right along as 
occasion may require. Also, a lake at one end of the 
ship can be moved to the other end by pipes and 
steam-pumps. When the sailor changed the slat- 
frame to-day, he was posting a transference of that 
kind. The seas had been increasing, and the vessel’s 
head needed more weighting, to keep it from rising 
on the waves instead of plowing through them; 
therefore, twenty-five tons of water had been trans¬ 
ferred to the bow from a lake situated well toward 
the stern. 

A water compartment is kept either full or empty. 
The body of water must be compact, so that it cannot 
slosh around. A shifting ballast would not do, of 
course. 

The modern ship is full of beautiful ingenuities, 
but it seems to me that this one is the king. I 
would rather be the originator of that idea than of 
any of the others. Perhaps the trim of a ship was 
never perfectly ordered and preserved until now. 
A vessel out of trim will not steer, her speed is 
maimed, she strains and labors in the seas. Poor 
creature, for six thousand years she has had no com¬ 
fort until these latest days. For six thousand years 
she swam through the best and cheapest ballast in 
the world, the only perfect ballast, but she couldn’t 
tell her master and he had not the wit to find it out 
for himself. It is odd to reflect that there is nearly 
as much water inside of this ship as there is outside, 
and yet there is no danger. 


20 





MARK TWAIN 


NOAH’S ARK 

The progress made in the great art of ship¬ 
building since Noah’s time is quite noticeable. Also, 
the looseness of the navigation laws in the time of 
Noah is in quite striking contrast with the strictness 
of the navigation laws of our time. It would not be 
possible for Noah to do in our day what he was 
permitted to do in his own. Experience has taught 
us the necessity of being more particular, more con¬ 
servative, more careful of human life. Noah would 
not be allowed to sail from Bremen in our day. The 
inspectors would come and examine the Ark, and 
make all sorts of objections. A person who knows 
Germany can imagine the scene and the conversation 
without difficulty and without missing a detail. The 
inspector would be in a beautiful military uniform; 
he would be respectful, dignified, kindly, the perfect 
gentleman, but steady as the north star to the last 
requirement of his duty. He would make Noah tell 
him where he was born, and how old he was, and 
what religious sect he belonged to, and the amount 
of his income, and the grade and position he claimed 
socially, and the name and style of his occupation, 
and how many wives and children he had, and how 
many servants, and the name, sex, and age of the 
whole of them; and if he hadn’t a passport he would 
be courteously required to get one right away. Then 
he would take up the matter of the Ark: 

“What is her length?” 

“Six hundred feet.” 


296 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

“Depth?” 

“Sixty-five.” 

“Beam?” 

“Fifty or sixty.” 

“Built of—” 

“Wood.” 

“What kind?” 

“Shittim and gopher.” 

“Interior and exterior decorations?” 

“Pitched within and without.” 

“Passengers?” 

“Eight.” 

“Sex?” 

“Half male, the others female.” 

“Ages?” 

“From a hundred years up.” 

“Up to where?” 

“Six hundred.” 

“Ah—going to Chicago; good idea, too. Sur¬ 
geon’s name?” 

“We have no surgeon.” 

“Must provide a surgeon. Also an undertaker— 
particularly the undertaker. These people must not 
be left without the necessities of life at their age. 
Crew?” 

“The same eight.” 

“The same eight?” 

“The same eight.” 

“And half of them women?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Have they ever served as seamen?” 

“No, sir.” 


20 


29 7 








MARK TWAIN 


“Have the men?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Have any of you ever been to sea?” 

“No, sir.” 

“Where were you reared?” 

“On a farm—all of us.” 

‘ ‘ This vessel requires a crew of eight hundred men, 
she not being a steamer. You must provide them. 
She must have four mates and nine cooks. Who is 
captain?” 

“I am, sir.” 

“You must get a captain. Also a chambermaid. 
Also sick-nurses for the old people. Who designed 
this vessel?” 

“I did, sir.” 

“Is it your first attempt?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“I partly suspected it. Cargo?” 

“Animals.” 

“Kind?” 

“All kinds.” 

“Wild, or tame?” 

“Mainly wild.” 

“Foreign or domestic?” 

“Mainly foreign.” 

* 1 Principal wild ones ?” 

Megatherium, elephant, rhinoceros, lion, tiger, wolf, 
snakes—all the wild things of all climes—two of each.” 
“Securely caged?” 

“No, not caged. 

“They must have iron cages. Who feeds and 
waters the menagerie?” 


298 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

“We do.” 

“The old people?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“It is dangerous—for both. The animals must 
be cared for by a competent force. How many 
animals are there?” 

Big ones, seven thousand; big and little together, 
ninety-eight thousand.” 

“You must provide twelve hundred keepers. How 
is the vessel lighted?” 

“By two windows.” 

“Where are they?” 

“Up under the eaves.” 

“Two windows for a tunnel six hundred feet long 
and sixty-five feet deep? You must put in the 
electric light—a few arc-lights and fifteen hundred 
incandescents. What do you do in case of leaks? 
How many pumps have you?” 

“None, sir.” 

“You must provide pumps. How do you get 
water for the passengers and the animals?” 

“We let down the buckets from the windows.” 

“It is inadequate. What is your motive power?” 

“What is my which?” 

“Motive power. What power do you use in 
driving the ship?” 

“None.” 

“You must provide sails or steam. What is the 
nature of your steering apparatus?” 

“We haven’t any.” 

“Haven’t you a rudder?” 

"No, sir,” 


299 






MARK TWAIN 


“How do you steer the vessel?” 

“We don’t.” 

“You must provide a rudder, and properly equip 
it. How many anchors have you?” 

“None.” 

“You must provide six. One is not permitted to 
sail a vessel like this without that protection. How 
many life-boats have you?” 

“None, sir.” 

‘ ‘ Provide twenty-five. How many life-preservers ?” 

“None.” 

“You will provide two thousand. How long are 
you expecting your voyage to last?” 

“Eleven or twelve months.” 

“Eleven or twelve months. Pretty slow—but you 
will be in time for the Exposition. What is your ship 
sheathed with—copper ? ’ ’ 

“Her hull is bare—not sheathed at all.” 

“Dear man, the wood-boring creatures of the sea 
would riddle her like a sieve and send her to the 
bottom in three months. She cannot be allowed to 
go away in this condition; she must be sheathed. 
Just a word more: Have you reflected that Chicago 
is an inland city and not reachable with a vessel 
like this?” 

“Shecargo? What is Shecargo? I am not going 
to Shecargo.” 

“Indeed? Then may I ask what the animals 
are for?” 

“Just to breed others from.” 

‘ ‘ Others ? Is it possible that you haven’t enough ?” 

“For the present needs of civilization, yes; but the 

300 



ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

rest are going to be drowned in a flood, and these 
are to renew the supply.” 

“A flood?” 

"Yes, sir.” 

"Are you sure of that?” 

"Perfectly sure. It is going to rain forty days 
and forty nights.” 

"Give yourself no concern about that, dear sir, it 
often does that here.” 

"Not this kind of rain. This is going to cover the 
mountain-tops, and the earth will pass from sight.” 

4 4 Privately—but of course not officially—I am 
sorry you revealed this, for it compels me to with¬ 
draw the option I gave you as to sails or steam. I 
must require you to use steam. Your ship cannot 
carry the hundredth part of an eleven-months’ water- 
supply for the animals. You will have to have con¬ 
densed water.” 

4 4 But I tell you I am going to dip water from out¬ 
side with buckets.” 

‘ 4 It will not answer. Before the flood reaches the 
mountain-tops the fresh waters will have joined the 
salt seas, and it will all be salt. You must put in 
steam and condense your water. I will now bid you 
good day, sir. Did I understand you to say that 
this was your very first attempt at ship-building?” 

"My very first, sir, I give you the honest truth. I 
built this Ark without having ever had the slight¬ 
est training or experience or instruction in marine 
architecture. 

"It is a remarkable work, sir, a most remarkable 
work. I consider that it contains more features that 

301 






MARK TWAIN 


are new—absolutely new and unhackneyed—than 
are to be found in any other vessel that swims the 
seas.” 

“This compliment does me infinite honor, dear sir, 
infinite; and I shall cherish the memory of it while 
life shall last. Sir, I offer my duty and most grateful 
thanks. Adieu.” 

No, the German inspector would be limitlessly 
courteous to Noah, and would make him feel that he 
was among friends, but he wouldn’t let him go to sea 
with that Ark. 


COLUMBUS’S CRAFT 

Between Noah’s time and the time of Columbus 
naval architecture underwent some changes, and 
from being unspeakably bad was improved to a point 
which may be described as less unspeakably bad. I 
have read somewhere, some time or other, that one 
of Columbus’s ships was a ninety-ton vessel. By 
comparing that ship with the ocean greyhounds of 
our time one is able to get down to a comprehension 
of how small that Spanish bark was, and how little 
fitted she would be to run opposition in the Atlantic 
passenger trade to-day. It would take seventy-four 
of her to match the tonnage of the Havel and carry 
the HaveVs trip. If I remember rightly, it took her 
ten weeks to make the passage. With our ideas this 
would now be considered an objectionable gait. She 
probably had a captain, a mate, and a crew consisting 
of four seamen and a boy. The crew of a modern 
greyhound numbers two hundred and fifty persons. 

302 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

Columbus’s ship being small and very old, we know 
that we may draw from these two facts several abso¬ 
lute certainties in the way of minor details which 
history has left unrecorded. For instance: being 
small, we know that she rolled and pitched and 
tumbled in any ordinary sea, and stood on her head 
or her tail, or lay down with her ear in the water, 
when storm seas ran high; also, that she was used 
to having billows plunge aboard and wash her decks 
from stem to stern; also, that the storm racks were 
on the table all the way over, and that nevertheless 
a man’s soup was oftener landed in his lap than in 
his stomach; also, that the dining-saloon was about 
ten feet by seven, dark, airless, and suffocating with 
oil-stench; also, that there was only about one state¬ 
room, the size of a grave, with a tier of two or three 
berths in it of the dimensions and comfortableness 
of coffins, and that when the light was out the 
darkness in there was so thick and real that you could 
bite into it and chew it like gum; also, that the only 
promenade was on the lofty poop-deck astern (for 
the ship was shaped like a high-quarter shoe)—a 
streak sixteen feet long by three feet wide, all the 
rest of the vessel being littered with ropes and 
flooded by the seas. 

We know all these things to be true, from the 
mere fact that we know the vessel was small. As 
the vessel was old, certain other truths follow, as 
matters of course. For instance: she was full of rats; 
she was full of cockroaches; the heavy seas made her 
seams open and shut like your fingers, and she leaked 
like a basket; where leakage is, there also, of neces- 

3°3 






MARK TWAIN 


sity, is bilge-water; and where bilge-water is, only the 
dead can enjoy life. This is on account of the smell. 
In the presence of bilge - water, Limburger cheese 
becomes odorless and ashamed. 

From these absolutely sure data we can com¬ 
petently "picture the daily life of the great discoverer. 
In the early morning he paid his devotions at the 
shrine of the Virgin. At eight bells he appeared on 
the poop-deck promenade. If the weather was 
chilly he came up clad from plumed helmet to 
spurred heel in magnificent plate armor inlaid with 
arabesques of gold, having previously warmed it at 
the galley fire. If the weather was warm he came 
up in the ordinary sailor toggery of the time—great 
slouch hat of blue velvet with a flowing brush of 
snowy ostrich plumes, fastened on with a flashing 
cluster of diamonds and emeralds; gold-embroidered 
doublet of green velvet with slashed sleeves exposing 
under-sleeves of crimson satin; deep collar and cuff 
ruffles of rich limp lace; trunk hose of pink velvet, 
with big knee-knots of brocaded yellow ribbon; pearl- 
tinted silk stockings, clocked and daintily em¬ 
broidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn kid, 
funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the pretty 
stockings; deep gauntlets of finest white heretic skin, 
from the factory of the Holy Inquisition, formerly 
part of the person of a lady of rank; rapier with 
sheath crusted with jewels, and hanging from a 
broad baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires. 

He walked the promenade thoughtfully, he noted 
the aspects of the sky and the course of the wind; he 
kept an eye out for drifting vegetation and other 

304 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

signs of land; he jawed the man at the wheel for 
pastime; he got out an imitation egg and kept him¬ 
self in practice on his old trick of making it stand on 
end; now and then he hove a life-line below and 
fished up a sailor who was drowning on the quarter¬ 
deck; the rest of his watch he gaped and yawned 
and stretched, and said he wouldn’t make the trip 
again to discover six Americas. For that was the 
kind of natural human person Columbus was when 
not posing for posterity. 

At noon he took the sun and ascertained that the 
good ship had made three hundred yards in twenty- 
four hours, and this enabled him to win the pool. 
Anybody can win the pool when nobody but himself 
has the privilege of straightening out the ship’s run 
and getting it right. 

The Admiral has breakfasted alone, in state: 
bacon, beans, and gin; at noon he dines alone, in 
state: bacon, beans, and gin; at six he sups alone, in 
state: bacon, beans, and gin; at eleven p. m. he takes 
a night relish alone, in state: bacon, beans, and gin. 
At none of these orgies is there any music; the ship 
orchestra is modern. After his final meal he returned 
thanks for his many blessings, a little overrating their 
value, perhaps, and then he laid off his silken splen¬ 
dors or his gilded hardware, and turned in, in his 
little coffin-bunk, and blew out his flickering stencher 
and began to refresh his lungs with inverted sighs 
freighted with the rich odors of rancid oil and bilge- 
water. The sighs returned as snores, and then the 
rats and the cockroaches swarmed out in brigades 
and divisions and army corps and had a circus all 

305 





MARK TWAIN 


over him. Such was the daily life of the great dis¬ 
coverer in his marine basket during several historic 
weeks; and the difference between his ship and his 
comforts and ours is visible almost at a glance. 

When he returned, the King of Spain, marveling, 
said—as history records: 

“This ship seems to be leaky. Did she leak 
badly?” 

“You shall judge for yourself, sire. I pumped the 
Atlantic Ocean through her sixteen times on the 
passage.” 

This is General Horace Porter’s account. Other 
authorities say fifteen. 

It can be shown that the differences between that 
ship and the one I am writing these historical con¬ 
tributions in are in several respects remarkable. 
Take the matter of decoration, for instance. I have 
been looking around again, yesterday and to-day, 
and have noted several details which I conceive to 
have been absent from Columbus’s ship, or at least 
slurred over and not elaborated and perfected. I 
observe stateroom doors three inches thick, of solid 
oak and polished. I note companionway vestibules 
with walls, doors, and ceilings paneled in polished 
hard woods, some light, some dark, all dainty and 
delicate joiner-work, and yet every point compact 
and tight; with beautiful pictures inserted, composed 
of blue tiles—some of the pictures containing as 
many as sixty tiles—and the joinings of those tiles 
perfect. These are daring experiments. One would 
have said that the first time the ship went straining 
and laboring through a storm-tumbled sea those 

306 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OP SHIPS 

tiles would gape apart and drop out. That they 
have not done so is evidence that the joiner’s art 
has advanced a good deal since the days when ships 
were so shackly that when a giant sea gave them a 
wrench the doors came unbolted. I find the walls 
of the dining-saloon upholstered with mellow pic¬ 
tures wrought in tapestry and the ceiling aglow with 
pictures done in oil. In other places of assembly I 
find great panels filled with embossed Spanish leather, 
the figures rich with gilding and bronze. Every¬ 
where I find sumptuous masses of color—color, color, 
color—color all about, color of every shade and tint 
and variety; and, as a result, the ship is bright and 
cheery to the eye, and this cheeriness invades one’s 
spirit and contents it. To fully appreciate the force 
and spiritual value of this radiant and opulent dream 
of color, one must stand outside at night in the pitch 
dark and the rain, and look in through a port, and 
observe it in the lavish splendor of the electric lights. 
The old-time ships were dull, plain, graceless, gloomy, 
and horribly depressing. They compelled the blues; 
one could not escape the blues in them. The modern 
idea is right: to surround the passenger with con¬ 
veniences, luxuries, and abundance of inspiriting 
color. As a result, the ship is the pleasantest place 
one can be in, except, perhaps, one’s home. 

A VANISHED SENTIMENT 

One thing is gone, to return no more forever—the 
romance of the sea. Soft sentimentality about the 
sea has retired from the activities of this life, and is 

307 






MARK TWAIN 


but a memory of the past, already remote and much 
faded. But within the recollection of men still 
living, it was in the breast of every individual; and 
the farther any individual lived from salt-water the 
more of it he kept in stock. It was as pervasive, as 
universal, as the atmosphere itself. The mere men¬ 
tion of the sea, the romantic sea, would make any 
company of people sentimental and mawkish at 
once. The great majority of the songs that were 
sung by the young people of the back settlements 
had the melancholy wanderer for subject and his 
mouthings about the sea for refrain. Picnic parties 
paddling down a creek in a canoe when the twilight 
shadows were gathering always sang: 

Homeward bound, homeward bound, 

From a foreign shore; 

and this was also a favorite in the West with the 
passengers on stem-wheel steamboats. There was 
another: 

My boat is by the shore 
And my bark is on the sea, 

But before I go, Tom Moore, 

Here’s a double health to thee. 

4 

And this one, also. 

O pilot, ’tis a fearful night, 

There’s danger on the deep. 

And this: 

A life on the ocean wave 

And a home on the rolling deep, 
i Where the scattered waters rave 
And the winds their revels keep! 

3°8 


ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 
And this: 


A wet sheet and a flowing sea, 

And a wind that follows fair. 

And this: 

My foot is on my gallant deck 
Once more the rover is free! 

And the “Larboard Watch”—the person referred 
to below is at the masthead, or somewhere up there: 

Oh, who can tell what joy he feels, 

As o’er the foam his vessel reels, 

And his tired eyelids slumb’ring fall, 

He rouses at the welcome call 

Of “Larboard watch—ahoy!” 

Yes, and there was forever and always some 
jackass-voiced person braying out: 

Rocked in the cradle of the deep, 

I lay me down in peace to sleep! 

Other favorites had these suggestive titles: “The 
Storm at Sea”; “The Bird at Sea”; “The Sailor 
Boy’s Dream”; “The Captive Pirate’s Lament”; 
“We are far from Home on the Stormy Main”—and 
so on, and so on, the list is endless. Everybody on 
a farm lived chiefly amid the dangers of the deep in 
those days, in fancy. 

But all that is gone now. Not a vestige of it is 
left. The iron-clad, with her unsentimental aspect 
and frigid attention to business, banished romance 
from the war marine, and the unsentimental steamer 
has banished it from the commercial marine. The 

3°9 





MARK TWAIN 


dangers and uncertainties which made sea life 
romantic have disappeared and carried the poetic 
element along with them. In our day the passengers 
never sing sea-songs on board a ship, and the band 
never plays them. Pathetic songs about the wan¬ 
derer in strange lands far from home, once so popular 
and contributing such fire and color to the imagina¬ 
tion by reason of the rarity of that kind of wanderer, 
have lost their charm and fallen silent, because every¬ 
body is a wanderer in the far lands now, and the 
interest in that detail is dead. Nobody is worried 
about the wanderer; there are no perils of the sea 
for him, there are no uncertainties. He is safer in 
the ship than he would probably be at home, for 
there he is always liable to have to attend some 
friend’s funeral and stand over the grave in the sleet, 
bareheaded—and that means pneumonia for him, 
if he gets his deserts; and the uncertainties of his 
voyage are reduced to whether he will arrive on the 
other side in the appointed afternoon, or have to 
wait till morning. 

The first ship I was ever in was a sailing-vessel. 
She was twenty-eight days going from San Francisco 
to the Sandwich Islands. But the main reason for 
this particularly slow passage was that she got 
becalmed and lay in one spot fourteen days in the 
center of the Pacific two thousand miles from land. 
I hear no sea-songs in this present vessel, but I 
heard the entire lay-out in that one. There were a 
dozen young people—they are pretty old now, I 
reckon—and they used to group themselves on the 
Stern, in the starlight or the moonlight, every eve- 

319 




ABOUT ALL KINDS OF SHIPS 

ning, and sing sea-songs till after midnight, in that hot, 
silent, motionless calm. They had no sense of humor, 
and they always sang “Homeward Bound,” without 
reflecting that that was practically ridiculous, since 
they were standing still and not proceeding in any 
direction at all; and they often followed that song 
with “‘Are we almost there, are we almost there?’ 
said the dying girl as she drew near home.” 

It was a very pleasant company of young people, 
and I wonder where they are now. Gone, oh, none 
knows whither; and the bloom and grace and beauty 
of their youth, where is that? Among them was a 
liar; all tried to reform him, but none could do it. 
And so, gradually, he was left to himself; none of us 
would associate with him. Many a time since I have 
seen in fancy that forsaken figure, leaning forlorn 
against the taffrail, and have reflected that perhaps 
if we had tried harder, and been more patient, we 
might have won him from his fault and persuaded 
him to relinquish it. But it is hard to tell; with him 
the vice was extreme, and was probably incurable. 
I like to think—and, indeed, I do think—that I did 
the best that in me lay to lead him to higher and 
better ways. 

There was a singular circumstance. The ship lay 
becalmed that entire fortnight in exactly the same 
spot. Then a handsome breeze came fanning over 
the sea, and we spread our white wings for flight. 
But the vessel did not budge. The sails bellied out, 
the gale strained at the ropes, but the vessel moved 
not a hair’s-breadth from her place. The captain 
surprised. It was some hours before we found 

3 11 


was 

21 






MARK TWAIN 


out what the cause of the detention was. It was 
barnacles. They collect very fast in that part of the 
Pacific. They had fastened themselves to the ship’s 
bottom; then others had fastened themselves to the 
first bunch, others to these, and so on, down and 
down and down, and the last bunch had glued the 
column hard and fast to the bottom of the sea, which 
is five miles deep at that point. So the ship was 
simply become the handle of a walking-cane five 
miles long—yes, no more moveable by wind and 
sail than a continent is. It was regarded by every 
one as remarkable. 

Well, the next week—however, Sandy Hook is in 
sight. 


FROM THE “LONDON TIMES” 

OF 1904 

I 

Correspondence of the “London Times ” 

Chicago, April 1, 1904. 

1 RESUME by cable - telephone where I left off 
yesterday. For many hours, now, this vast city 
—along with the rest of the globe, of course—has 
talked of nothing but the extraordinary episode 
mentioned in my last report. In accordance with 
your instructions, I will now trace the romance from 
its beginnings down to the culmination of yesterday 
—or to-day; call it which you like. By an odd 
chance, I was a personal actor in a part of this 
drama myself. The opening scene plays in Vienna. 
Date, one o’clock in the morning, March 31, 1898. 
I had spent the evening at a social entertainment. 
About midnight I went away, in company with 
the military attachds of the British, Italian, and 
American embassies, to finish with a late smoke. 
This function had been appointed to take place in 
the house of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attache 
mentioned in the above list. When we arrived there 
we found several visitors in the room: young 

313 


2 1 



MARK TWAIN 


Szczepanik ; 1 Mr. K, his financial backer; Mr. W., 
the latter’s secretary; and Lieutenant Clayton of the 
United States army. War was at that time threat¬ 
ening between Spain and our country, and Lieu¬ 
tenant Clayton had been sent to Europe on military 
business. I was well acquainted with young Szcze¬ 
panik and his two friends, and I knew Mr. Clayton 
slightly. I had met him at West Point years before, 
when he was a cadet. It was when General Merritt 
was superintendent. He had the reputation of being 
an able officer, and also of being quick-tempered and 
plain-spoken. 

This smoking-party had been gathered together 
partly for business. This business was to consider 
the availability of the telelectroscope for military 
service. It sounds oddly enough now, but it is 
nevertheless true that at that time the invention 
was not taken seriously by any one except its in¬ 
ventor. Even his financial supporter regarded it 
merely as a curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he 
was so convinced of this that he had actually post¬ 
poned its use by the general world to the end of the 
dying century by granting a two years’ exclusive 
lease of it to a syndicate, whose intent was to exploit 
it at the Paris World’s Fair. 

When we entered the smoking-room we found 
Lieutenant Clayton and Szczepanik engaged in a 
warm talk over the telelectroscope in the German 
tongue. Clayton was saying: 

“Well, you know my opinion of it, anyway!” and he 
brought his fist down with emphasis upon the table. 

Pronounced (approximately) Zcpannik. 

314 


FROM THE “ LONDON TIMES” 


“And I do not value it,” retorted the young in¬ 
ventor, with provoking calmness of tone and manner. 

Clayton turned to Mr. K., and said: 

11 1 cannot see why you are wasting money on this 
toy. In my opinion, the day will never come when 
it will do a farthing’s worth of real service for any 
human being.” 

“That may be; yes, that may be; still, I have put 
the money in it, and am content. I think, myself, 
that it is only a toy; but Szczepanik claims more for 
it, and I know him well enough to believe that he 
can see farther than I can—either with his telelectro- 
scope or without it.” 

The soft answer did not cool Clayton down; it 
seemed only to irritate him the more; and he re¬ 
peated and emphasized his conviction that the inven¬ 
tion would never do any man a farthing’s worth 
of real service. He even made it a “brass ” farthing, 
this time. Then he laid an English farthing on the 
table, and added: 

“Take that, Mr. K., and put it away; and if ever 
the telelectroscope does any man an actual service, 
—mind, a real service—please mail it to me as a 
reminder, and I will take back what I have been 
saying. Will you?” 

“I will”; and Mr. K. put the coin in his pocket. 

Mr. Clayton now turned toward Szczepanik, and 
began with a taunt—a taunt which did not reach a 
finish; Szczepanik interrupted it with a hardy retort, 
and followed this with a blow. There was a brisk 
fight for a moment or two; then the attaches sepa¬ 
rated the men, 

3i5 



MARK TWAIN 


The scene now changes to Chicago. Time, the 
autumn of 1901. As soon as the Paris contract 
released the telelectroscope, it was delivered to 
public use, and was soon connected with the tele¬ 
phonic systems of the whole world. The improved 
“limitless-distance” telephone was presently intro- « 
duced, and the daily doings of the globe made visi¬ 
ble to everybody, and audibly discussable, too, by 
witnesses separated by any number of leagues. 

By and by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clay¬ 
ton (now captain) was serving in that military de¬ 
partment at the time. The two men resumed the 
Viennese quarrel of 1898. On three different occa¬ 
sions they quarreled, and were separated by wit¬ 
nesses. Then came an interval of two months, 
during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any 
of his friends, and it was at first supposed that he 
had gone off on a sight-seeing tour and would soon 
be heard from. But no; no word came from him. 
Then it was supposed that he had returned to 
Europe. Still, time drifted on, and he was not 
heard from. Nobody was troubled, for he was like 
most inventors and other kinds of poets, and went 
and came in a capricious way, and often without 
notice. 

Now comes the tragedy. On the 29th of Decem¬ 
ber, in a dark and unused compartment of the cellar 
under Captain Clayton’s house, a corpse was dis¬ 
covered by one of Clayton’s maid-servants. It was 
easily identified as Szczepanik’s. The man had died 
by violence. Clayton was arrested, indicted, and 
brought to trial, charged with this murder. The 

316 


FROM THE “LONDON TIMES” 


evidence against him was perfect in every detail, and 
absolutely unassailable. Clayton admitted this him¬ 
self. He said that a reasonable man could not 
examine this testimony with a dispassionate mind 
and not be convinced by it; yet the man would be 
in error, nevertheless. Clayton swore that he did 
not commit the murder, and that he had had noth¬ 
ing to do with it. 

As your readers will remember, he was con¬ 
demned to death. He had numerous and powerful 
friends, and they worked hard to save him, for none 
of them doubted the truth of his assertion. I did 
what little I could to help, for I had long since 
become a close friend of his, and thought I knew that 
it was not in his character to inveigle an enemy into 
a corner and assassinate him. During 1902 and 1903 
he was several times reprieved by the governor; he 
was reprieved once more in the beginning of the 
present year, and the execution-day postponed to 
March 31st. 

The governor’s situation has been embarrassing, 
from the day of the condemnation, because of the 
fact that Clayton’s wife is the governor’s niece. The 
marriage took place in 1899, when Clayton was 
thirty-four and the girl twenty-three, and has been 
a happy one. There is one child, a little girl three 
years old. Pity for the poor mother and child kept 
the mouths of grumblers closed at first; but this could 
not last forever—for in America politics has a hand 
in everything—and by and by the governor’s polit¬ 
ical opponents began to call attention to his delay 
in allowing the law to take its course. These hints 

3 J 7 



MARK TWAIN 


have grown more and more frequent of late, and more 
and more pronounced. As a natural result, his 
own party grew nervous. Its leaders began to visit 
Springfield and hold long private conferences with 
him. He was now between two fires. On the one 
hand, his niece was imploring him to pardon her 
husband; on the other were the leaders, insisting that 
he stand to his plain duty as chief magistrate of the 
State, and place no further bar to Clayton’s exe¬ 
cution. Duty won in the struggle, and the governor 
gave his word that he would not again respite the 
condemned man. This was two weeks ago. Mrs. 
Clayton now said: 

“Now that you have given your word, my last 
hope is gone, for I know you will never go back 
from it. But you have done the best you could for 
John, and I have no reproaches for you. You love 
him, and you love me, and we both know that if 
you could honorably save him, you would do it. I 
will go to him now, and be what help I can to him, 
and get what comfort I may out of the few days that 
are left to us before the night comes which will have 
no end for me in life. You will be with me that day? 
You will not let me bear it alone?” 

“I will take you to him myself, poor child, and 
I will be near you to the last.” 

By the governor’s command, Clayton was now 
allowed every indulgence he might ask for which 
could interest his mind and soften the hardships of 
his imprisonment. His wife and child spent the 
days with him; I was his companion by night. He 
was removed from the narrow cell which he had 

318 


FROM THE “LONDON TIMES” 


occupied during such a dreary stretch of time, and 
given the chief warden’s room and comfortable 
quarters. His mmd was always busy with the 
catastrophe of his life, and with the slaughtered 
inventor, and he now took the fancy that he would 
like to have the telelectroscope and divert his mind 
with it. He had his wish. The connection was 
made with the international telephone-station, and 
day by day, and night by night, he called up one 
comer of the globe after another, and looked upon 
its life, and studied its strange sights, and spoke 
with its people, and realized that by grace of this 
marvelous instrument he was almost as free as the 
birds of the air, although a prisoner under locks and 
bars. He seldom spoke, and I never interrupted 
him when he was absorbed in this amusement. 
I sat in his parlor and read and smoked, and the 
nights were very quiet and reposefully sociable, 
and I found them pleasant. Now and then I would 
hear him say, “Give me Yedo”; next, “Give me 
Hong-Kong”; next, “Give me Melbourne.’’ And I 
smoked on, and read in comfort, while he wandered 
about the remote under-world, where the sun was 
shining in the sky, and the people were at their daily 
work. Sometimes the talk that came from those far 
regions through the microphone attachment inter¬ 
ested me, and I listened. 

Yesterday—I keep calling it yesterday, which is 
quite natural, for certain reasohs—the instrument 
remained unused, and that, also, was natural, for it 
was the eve of the execution-day. It was spent in 
tears and lamentations and farewells. The governor 

3*9 


MARK TWAIN 


and the wife and child remained until a quarter past 
eleven at night, and the scenes I witnessed were 
pitiful to see. The execution was to take place at 
four in the morning. A little after eleven a sound 
of hammering broke out upon the still night, and 
there was a glare of light, and the child cried out 
“What is that, papa?” and ran to the window be¬ 
fore she could be stopped, and clapped her small 
hands, and said: “Oh, come and see, mamma—such 
a pretty thing they are making!” The mother 
knew—and fainted. It was the gallows! 

She was carried away to her lodging, poor wom¬ 
an, and Clayton and I were alone—alone, and 
thinking, brooding, dreaming. We might have been 
statues, we sat so motionless and still. It was a 
wild night, for winter was come again for a moment, 
after the habit of this region in the early spring. 
The sky was starless and black, and a strong wind 
was blowing from the lake. The silence in the room 
was so deep that all outside sounds seemed exag¬ 
gerated by contrast with it. These sounds were 
fitting ones; they harmonized with the situation and 
the conditions: the boom and thunder of sudden 
storm-gusts among the roofs and chimneys, then the 
dying down into moanings and wailings about the 
eaves and angles; now and then a gnashing and 
lashing rush of sleet along the window-panes; and 
always the muffled and uncanny hammering of the 
gallows-builders in \he courtyard. After an age of 
this, another sound—far off, and coming smothered 
and faint through the riot of the tempest—a bell 
tolling twelve! Another age, and it tolled again, 

320 


FROM THE “ LONDON TIMES” 


By and by, again. A dreary, long interval after 
this, then the spectral sound floated to us once more 
—one, two, three; and this time we caught our 
breath: sixty minutes of life left! 

Clayton rose, and stood by the window, and 
looked up into the black sky, and listened to the 
thrashing sleet and the piping wind; then he said: 
“That a dying man’s last of earth should be—this!” 
After a little he said: “I must see the sun again— 
the sun!” and the next moment he was feverishly 
calling: “China! Give me China—Peking!” 

I was strangely stirred, and said to myself: “To 
think that it is a mere human being who does this 
unimaginable miracle—turns winter into summer, 
night into day, storm into calm, gives the freedom 
of the great globe to a prisoner in his cell, and the 
sun in his naked splendor to a man dying in Egyp¬ 
tian darkness 1 ” 

I was listening. 

“What light! what brilliancy! what radiance!. . . 
This is Peking?” 

“Yes.” 

“The time?” 

‘ ‘ Mid-afternoon. ’ ’ 

“What is the great crowd for, and in such gor¬ 
geous costumes? What masses and masses of rich 
color and barbaric magnificence! And how they 
flash and glow and bum in the flooding sunlight! 
What is the occasion of it all?” 

“The coronation of our new emperor—the Czar.” 

“But I thought that that was to take place 
yesterday,” 


321 









MARK TWAIN 


“This is yesterday—to you.” 

“Certainly it is. But my mind is confused, these 
days; there are reasons for it. . . Is this the be¬ 
ginning of the procession?” 

“Oh, no, it began to move an hour, ago.” 

“Is there much more of it still to come?” 

“Two hours of it. Why do you sigh?” 

“Because I should like to see it all.” 

“And why can’t you?” 

“I have to go—presently.” 

“You have an engagement?” 

After a pause, softly: “Yes.” After another 
pause: “Who are these in the splendid pavilion?” 

“The imperial family, and visiting royalties from 
here and there and yonder in the earth.” 

“And who are those in the adjoining pavilions to 
the right and left?” 

“Ambassadors and their families and suites to the 
right; unofficial foreigners to the left.'” 

“If you will be so good, I—” 

Boom! That distant "bell again, tolling the half- 
hour faintly through the tempest of wind and sleet. 
The door opened, and the governor and the mother 
and child entered—the woman in widow’s weeds! 
vShe fell upon her husband’s breast in a passion of 
sobs, and I—I could not stay; I could not bear it. 
I went into the bedchamber, and closed the door. 
I sat there waiting—waiting—waiting, and listen¬ 
ing to the rattling sashes and the blustering of the 
storrfi. After what seemed a long, long time, I 
heard a rustle and movement in the parlor, and 
knew that the clergyman and the sheriff and the 

322 


FROM THE “ LONDON TIMES” 


guard were come. There was some low-voiced 
talking; then a hush; then a prayer, with a sound 
of sobbing; presently, footfalls—the departure for 
the gallows; then the child’s happy voice: “Don’t 
cry now , mamma, when we’ve got papa again, and 
taking him home.” 

The door closed; they were gone. I was ashamed: 
i I was the only friend of the dying man that had no 
spirit, no courage. I stepped into the room, and 
said I would be a man and would follow. But we 
are made as we are made, and we cannot help it. I 
did not go. 

I fidgeted about the room nervously, and presently 
went to the window, and softly raised it—drawn 
by that dread fascination which the terrible and the 
awful exert—and looked down upon the courtyard. 
By the garish light of the electric lamps I saw the 
little group of privileged witnesses, the wife crying 
on her uncle’s breast, the condemned man standing 
on the scaffold with the halter around his neck, his 
arms strapped to his body, the black cap on his 
head, the sheriff at his side with his hand on the 
drop, the clergyman in front of him with bare head 
and his book in his hand. 

tl I am the resurrection and the life —” 

I turned away. I could not listen; I could not 
look. I did not know whither to go or what to do. 
Mechanically, and without knowing it, I put my eye 
to that strange instrument, and there was Peking 
and the Czar’s procession! The next moment I was 
leaning out of the window, gasping, suffocating, 
trying to speak, but dumb from the very imminence 

323 






MARK TWAIN 

of the necessity of speaking. The preacher could 
speak, but I, who had such need of words— 

11 And may God have mercy upon your soul. Amen.” 

The sheriff drew down the black cap, and laid his 
hand upon the lever. I got my voice. 

“Stop, for God’s sake! The man is innocent. 
Come here and see Szczepanik face to face!” 

Hardly three minutes later the governor had my 
place at the window, and was saying: 

“Strike off his bonds and set him free!” 

Three minutes later all were in the parlor again. 
The reader will imagine the scene; I have no need 
to describe it. It was a sort of mad orgy of joy. 

A messenger carried word to Szczepanik in the 
pavilion, and one could see the distressed amaze¬ 
ment dawn in his face as he listened to the tale. 
Then he came to his end of the line, and talked with 
Clayton and the governor and the others; and the 
wife poured out her gratitude upon him for saving 
her husband’s life, and in her deep thankfulness she 
kissed him at twelve thousand miles’ range. 

The telelectrophonoscopes of the globe were put to 
service now, and for many hours the kings and 
queens of many realms (with here and there a re¬ 
porter) talked with Szczepanik, and praised him; 
and the few scientific societies which had not already 
made him an honorary member conferred that grace 
upon him. 

How had he come to disappear from among us? 
It was easily explained. He had not grown used to 
being a world-famous person, and had been forced 
to break away from the lionizing that was robbing 

3 2 4 


FROM THE “ LONDON TIMES” 


him of all privacy and repose. So he grew a beard, 
put on colored glasses, disguised himself a little in 
other ways, then took a fictitious name, and went 
off to wander about the earth in peace. 

Such is the tale of the drama which began with 
an inconsequential quarrel in Vienna in the spring 
of 1898, and came near ending as a tragedy in the 
spring of 1904. 


Mark Twain. 


II 


Correspondence of the “London Times ' 1 


Chicago, April 5, 1904. 



O-DAY, by a clipper of the Electric Line, and 


J the latter’s Electric Railway connections, ar¬ 
rived an envelope from Vienna, for Captain Clayton, 
containing an English farthing. The receiver of it 
was a good deal moved. He called up Vienna, and 

stood face to face with Mr. K., and said: 

“I do not need to say anything; you can see it 

all in my face. My wife has the farthing. Do not 
be afraid—she will not throw it away.” M. T. 

! 

Correspondence of the “London Times 11 


Chicago, April 23, 1904. 


N OW that the after developments of the Clayton 
case have run their course and reached a 
finish, I will sum them up. Clayton’s romantic 
escape from a shameful death steeped all this region 


325 






MARK TWAIN 


in an enchantment of wonder and joy—during the 
proverbial nine days. Then the sobering process 
followed, and men began to take thought, and to 
say: “But a man was killed, and Clayton killed him.” 
Others replied: “That is true: we have been over¬ 
looking that important detail; we have been led 
away by excitement.” 

The feeling soon became general that Clayton 
ought to be tried again. Measures were taken 
accordingly, and the proper representations con¬ 
veyed to Washington; for in America, under the new 
paragraph added to the Constitution in 1899, second 
trials are not state affairs, but national, and must 
be tried by the most august body in the land—the 
Supreme Court of the United States. The justices 
were, therefore, summoned to sit in Chicago. The 
session was held day before yesterday, and was 
opened with the usual impressive formalities, the 
nine judges appearing in their black robes, and the 
new chief justice (Lemaitre) presiding. * In opening 
the case, the chief justice said: 

“It is my opinion that this matter is quite simple. 
The prisoner at the bar was charged with murdering 
the man Szczepanik; he was tried for murdering the 
man Szczepanik; he was fairly tried, and justly con- , 
demned and sentenced to death for murdering the ) 
man Szczepanik. It turns out that the man Szcze¬ 
panik was not murdered at all. By the decision 
of the French courts in the Dreyfus matter, it is 
established beyond cavil or question that the de¬ 
cisions of courts are permanent and cannot be re¬ 
vised. We are obliged to respect and adopt this 

326 







FROM THE “ LONDON TIMES’’ 


precedent. It is upon precedents that the enduring 
edifice of jurisprudence is reared. The prisoner at 
the bar has been fairly and righteously condemned 
to death for the murder of the man Szczepanik, and, 
in my opinion, there is but one course to pursue in 
the matter: he must be hanged.” 

Mr. Justice Crawford said: 

'‘But, your Excellency, he was pardoned on the 
scaffold for that.” 

“The pardon is not valid, and cannot stand, be¬ 
cause he was pardoned for killing a man whom he 
had not killed. A man cannot be pardoned for a 
crime which he has not committed; it would be an 
absurdity.” 

“But, your Excellency, he did kill a man.” 

“That is an extraneous detail; we have nothing 
to do with it. The court cannot take up this crime 
until the prisoner has expiated the other one.” 

Mr. Justice Halleck said: 

“If we order his execution, your Excellency, we 
shall bring about a miscarriage of justice; for the 
governor will pardon him again.” 

4 4 He will not have the pardon. He cannot pardon 
a man for a crime which he has not committed. As 
I observed before, it would be an absurdity.” 

After a consultation, Mr. Justice Wadsworth said: 

4 4 Several of us have arrived at the conclusion, 
your Excellency, that it would be an error to hang 
the prisoner for killing Szczepanik, but only for 
killing the other man, since it is proven that he did 
not kill Szczepanik.” 

“On the contrary, it is proven that he did kill 

72 327 





MARK TWAIN 


Szczepanik. By the French precedent, it is plain 
that we must abide by the finding of the court.” 

“But Szczepanik is still alive.” 

“So is Dreyfus.” 

In the end it was found impossible to ignore or 
get around the French precedent. There could be 
but one result: Clayton was delivered over to the 
executioner. It made an immense excitement; the 
state rose as one man and clamored for Clayton’s 
pardon and re-trial. The governor issued the par¬ 
don, but the Supreme Court was in duty bound 
to annul it, and did so, and poor Clayton was 
hanged yesterday. The city is draped in black, and, 
indeed, the like may be said of the state. All 
America is vocal with scorn of “French justice,” 
and of the malignant little soldiers who invented it 
and inflicted it upon the other Christian lands. 





A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 


I F I were required to guess offhand, and without 
collusion with higher minds, what is the bottom 
cause of the amazing material and intellectual ad¬ 
vancement of the last fifty years, I should guess that 
it was the modern-born and previously non-existent 
disposition on the part of men to believe that a new 
idea can have value. With the long roll of the 
mighty names of history present in our minds, we are 
not privileged to doubt that for the past twenty or 
thirty centuries every conspicuous civilization in the 
world has produced intellects able to invent and 
create the things which make our day a wonder; 
perhaps we may be justified in inferring, then, that 
the reason they did not do it was that the public 
reverence for old ideas and hostility to new ones 
always stood in their way, and was a wall they could 
not break down or climb over. The prevailing tone 
of old books regarding new ideas is one of suspicion 
and uneasiness at times, and at other times contempt. 
By contrast, our day is indifferent to old ideas, and 
even considers that their age makes their value 
questionable, but jumps at a new idea with enthu¬ 
siasm and high hope—a hope which is high because 
it has not been accustomed to being disappointed. 
I make no guess as to just when this disposition was 
22 329 







MARK TWAIN 


born to us, but it certainly is ours, was not possessed 
by any century before us, is our peculiar mark and 
badge, and is doubtless the bottom reason why we 
are a race of lightning-shod Mercuries, and proud of 
it—instead of being, like our ancestors, a race of 
plodding crabs, and proud of that. 

So recent is this change from a three or four thou¬ 
sand year twilight to the flash and glare of open day 
that I have walked in both, and yet am not old. 
Nothing is to-day as it was when I was an urchin; 
but when I was an urchin, nothing was much different 
from what it had always been in this world. Take 
a single detail, for example—medicine. Galen could 
have come into my sick-room at any time during my 
first seven years—I mean any day when it wasn’t 
fishing weather, and there wasn’t any choice but 
school or sickness—and he could have sat down there 
and stood my doctor’s watch without asking a 
question. He would have smelt around among the 
wilderness of cups and bottles and vials on the 
table and the shelves, and missed not a stench that 
used to glad him two thousand years before, nor dis¬ 
covered one that was of a later date. He would 
have examined me, and run across only one dis¬ 
appointment—I was already salivated; I would have 
him there; for I was always salivated, calomel was 
so cheap. He would get out his lancet then; but I 
would have him again; our family doctor didn’t 
allow blood to accumulate in the system. However, 
he could take dipper and ladle, and freight me up 
with old familiar doses that had come down from 
Adam to his time and mine; and he could go out with 

33 ° 




A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

a wheelbarrow and gather weeds and offal, and build 
some more, while those others were getting in their 
work. And if our reverend doctor came and found 
him there, he would be dumb with awe, and would 
get down and worship him. Whereas if Galen should 
appear among us to-day, he could not stand any¬ 
body’s watch; he would inspire no awe; he would 
be told he was a back number, and it would surprise 
him to see that that fact counted against him, instead 
of in his favor. He wouldn’t know our medicines; 
he wouldn’t know our practice; and the first time 
he tried to introduce his own we would hang him. 

This introduction brings me to my literary relic. 
It is a Dictionary of Medicine, by Dr. James, of Lou¬ 
don, assisted by Mr. Boswell’s Doctor Samuel 
Johnson, and is a hundred and fifty years old, it 
having been published at the time of the rebellion 
of ’45. If it had been sent against the Pretender’s 
troops there probably wouldn’t have been a survivor. 
In 1861 this deadly book was still working the 
cemeteries—down in Virginia. For three genera¬ 
tions and a half it had been going quietly along, 
enriching the earth with its slain. Up to its last free 
day it was trusted and believed in, and its devastating 
advice taken, as was shown by notes inserted be¬ 
tween its leaves. But our troops captured it and 
brought it home, and it has been out of business 
since. These remarks from its preface are in the 
true spirit of the olden time, sodden with worship of 
the old, disdain of the new: 

If we inquire into the Improvements which have been made 
by the Moderns, we shall be forced to confess that we have so 





MARK TWAIN 


little Reason to value ourselves beyond the Antients, or to be 
tempted to contemn them, that we cannot give stronger or more 
convincing Proofs of our own Ignorance, as well as our Pride. 

Among all the systematical Writers, I think there are very 
few who refuse the Preference to Hieron, Fabricius ab Aquapen- 
dente, as a Person of unquestion’d Learning and Judgment; and 
yet is he not asham’d to let his Readers know that Celsus among 
the Latins, Paulus Aegineta among the Greeks, and Albucasis 
among the Arabians, whom I am unwilling to place among the 
Modems, tho’ he liv’d but six hundred Years since, are the 
Triumvirate to whom he principally stands indebted, for the 
Assistance he had receiv’d from them in composing his excellent 
Book. 

[In a previous paragraph are puffs of Galen, Hippocrates, and 
other debris of the Old Silurian Period of Medicine.] How 
many Operations are there now in Use which were unknown to 
the Antients? 

That is true. The surest way for a nation’s 
scientific men to prove that they were proud and 
ignorant was to claim to have found out something 
fresh in the course of a thousand years or so. Evi¬ 
dently the peoples of this book’s day regarded them¬ 
selves as children, and their remote ancestors as the 
only grown-up people that had existed. Consider 
the contrast: without offense, without over-egotism, 
our own scientific men may and do regard themselves 
as grown people and their grandfathers as children. 
The change here presented is probably the most 
sweeping that has ever come over mankind in the 
history of the race. It is the utter reversal, in a 
couple of generations, of an attitude which had been 
maintained without challenge or interruption from 
the earliest antiquity. It amounts to creating man 
over again on a new plan; he was a canal-boat be¬ 
fore, he is an ocean greyhound to-day. The change 

332 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

from reptile to bird was not more tremendous, and 
it took longer. 

It is curious. If you read between the lines what 
this author says about Brer Albucasis, you detect 
that in venturing to compliment him he has to 
whistle a little to keep his courage up, because 
Albucasis “liv’d but six hundred Years since,” and 
therefore came so uncomfortably near being a 
“modern” that one couldn’t respect him without 
risk. 

Phlebotomy, Venesection—terms to signify bleed¬ 
ing—are not often heard in our day, because we have 
ceased to believe that the best way to make a bank 
or a body healthy is to squander its capital; but in 
our author’s time the physician went around with a 
hatful of lancets on his person all the time, and took 
a hack at every patient whom he found still alive. 
He robbed his man of pounds and pounds of blood 
at a single operation. The details of this sort in 
this book make terrific reading. Apparently even 
the healthy did not escape, but were bled twelve 
times a year, on a particular day of the month, and 
exhaustively purged besides. Here is a specimen 
of the vigorous old-time practice; it occurs in our 
author’s adoring biography of a Doctor Aretaeus, a 
licensed assassin of Homer’s time, or thereabouts: 

In a Quinsey he used Venesection, and allow’d the Blood to 
flow till the Patient was ready to faint away. 

There is no harm in trying to cure a headache—in 
our day. You can’t do it, but you get more or less 
entertainment out of trying, and that is something; 

333 




MARK TWAIN 


besides, you live to tell about it, and that is more. 
A century or so ago you could have had the first of 
these features in rich variety, but you might fail of 
the other once—and once would do. I quote: 

As Dissections of Persons who have died of severe Head-achs, 
which have been related by Authors, are too numerous to be 
inserted in this Place, we shall here abridge some of the most 
curious and important Observations relating to this Subject, 
collected by the celebrated Bonetus, 

The celebrated Bonetus’s “Observation No. i” 
seems to me a sufficient sample, all by itself, of what 
people used to have to stand any time between the 
creation of the world and the birth of your father 
and mine when they had the disastrous luck to get 
a “Head-ach”: 

A certain Merchant, about forty Years of Age, of a Melan¬ 
cholic Habit, and deeply involved in the Cares of the World, 
was, during the Dog-days, seiz’d with a violent pain of his 
Head, which some time after oblig’d him to keep his Bed. 

I, being call’d, order’d Venesection in the Arms, the Applica¬ 
tion of Leeches to the Vessels of his Nostrils, Forehead, and 
Temples, as also to those behind his Ears; I likewise prescrib’d 
the Application of Cupping-glasses, with Scarification, to his 
Back: But notwithstanding these Precautions, he dy’d. If any 
Surgeon, skill’d in Arteriotomy, had been present, I should have 
also order’d that Operation. 

I looked for “Arteriotomy” in this same Diction¬ 
ary, and found this definition: “The opening of an 
Artery with a View of taking away Blood.” Here 
was a person who was being bled in the arms, fore¬ 
head, nostrils, back, temples, and behind the ears, 
yet the celebrated Bonetus was not satisfied, but 
wanted to open an artery “with a View” to insert 

334 



A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

a pump, probably. “Notwithstanding these Pre¬ 
cautions”—he dy’d. No art of speech could more 
quaintly convey this butcher’s innocent surprise. 
Now that we know what the celebrated Bonetus did 
when he wanted to relieve a Head-ach, it is no trouble 
to infer that if he wanted to comfort a man that had 
a Stomach-ach he disemboweled him. 

I have given one “Observation”—a single Head- 
ach case; but the celebrated Bonetus follows it with 
eleven more. Without enlarging upon the matter, 
I merely note this coincidence—they all “dy’d.” 
Not one of these people got well; yet this obtuse 
hyena sets down every little gory detail of the several 
assassinations as complacently as if he imagined he 
was doing a useful and meritorious work in per¬ 
petuating the methods of his crimes. “Observa¬ 
tions,” indeed! They are confessions. 

According to this book, “the Ashes of an Ass’s 
hoof mix’d with Woman’s milk cures chilblains.” 
Length of time required not stated. Another item: 
“The constant Use of Milk is bad for the Teeth, and 
causes them to rot, and loosens the Gums.” Yet in 
our day babies use it constantly without hurtful 
results. This author thinks you ought to wash out 
your mouth with wine before venturing to drink 
milk. Presently, when we come to notice what 
fiendish decoctions those people introduced into 
their stomachs by way of medicine, we shall won¬ 
der that they could have been afraid of milk. 

It appears that they had false teeth in those days. 
They were made of ivory sometimes, sometimes of 
bone, and were thrust into the natural sockets, and 

335 







MARK TWAIN 


lashed to each other and to the neighboring teeth 
with wires or with silk threads. They were not to 
eat with, nor to laugh with, because they dropped 
out when not in repose. You could smile with them, 
but you had to practise first, or you would overdo 
it. They were not for business, but just decoration. 
They filled the bill according to their lights. 

This author says “the Flesh of Swine nourishes 
above all other eatables.” In another place he 
mentions a number of things, and says “these are. 
very easy to be digested; so is Pork.” This is prob¬ 
ably a lie. But he is pretty handy in that line; and 
when he hasn’t anything of the sort in stock himself 
he gives some other expert an opening. For in¬ 
stance, under the head of “Attractives” he intro¬ 
duces Paracelsus, who tells of a nameless “Specific” 
—quantity of it not set down—which is able to 
draw a hundred pounds of flesh to itself—distance not 
stated—and then proceeds, “It happen’d in our own 
Days that an Attractive of this Kind drew a certain 
Man’s Lungs up into his Mouth, by which he had 
the Misfortune to be suffocated.” This is more than 
doubtful. In the first place, his Mouth couldn’t 
accommodate his Lungs—in fact, his Hat couldn’t; 
secondly, his Heart being more eligibly Situated, it 
would have got the Start of his Lungs, and, being a 
lighter Body, it would have Sail’d in ahead and 
Occupied the Premises; thirdly, you will Take Notice 
a Man with his Heart in his Mouth hasn’t any Room 
left for his Lungs—he has got all he can Attend to; 
and finally, the Man must have had the Attractive 
in his Hat, and when he saw what was going to 

336 




A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

Happen he would have Remov’d it and Sat Down on 
it. Indeed, he would; and then how could it Choke 
him to Death? I don’t believe the thing ever hap¬ 
pened at all. 

Paracelsus adds this effort: ‘ T myself saw a Plaister 
which attracted as much Water as was sufficient to 
fill a Cistern; and by these very Attractives Branches 
may be torn from Trees; and, which is still more 
surprising, a Cow may be carried up into the Air.” 
Paracelsus is dead now; he was always straining him¬ 
self that way. 

They liked a touch of mystery along with their 
medicine in the olden time; and the medicine-man 
of that day, like the medicine-man of our Indian 
tribes, did what he could to meet the requirement: 

Arcanum. A Kind of Remedy whose Manner of Preparation, 
or singular Efficacy, is industriously concealed, in order to 
enhance its Value. By the Chymists it is generally defined a 
thing secret, incorporeal, and immortal, which cannot be Known 
by Man, unless by Experience; for it is the Virtue of every thing, 
which operates a thousand times more than the thing itself. 

To me the butt end of this explanation is not 
altogether clear. A little of what they knew about 
natural history in the early times is exposed here 
and there in the Dictionary. 

The Spider. It is more common than welcome in Houses. 
Both the Spider and its Web are used in Medicine: The Spider 
is said to avert the Paroxysms of Fevers, if it be apply’d to the 
Pulse of the Wrist, or the Temples; but it is peculiarly recom¬ 
mended against a Quartan, being enclosed in the Shell of a 
Hazlenut. 

Among approved Remedies, I find that the distill’d Water of 
Black Spiders is an excellent Cure for Wounds, and that this was 
one of the choice Secrets of Sir Walter Raleigh. 

337 








MARK TWAIN 


The Spider which some call the Catcher, or Wolf, being beaten 
into a Plaister, then sew’d up in Linen, and apply’d to the 
Forehead or Temples, prevents the Returns of a Tertian. 

There is another Kind of Spider, which spins a white, fine, 
and thick Web. One of this Sort, wrapp’d in Leather, and hung 
about the Arm, will avert the Fit of a Quartan. Boil’d in Oil of 
Roses, and instilled into the Ears, it eases Pains in those Parts. 
Dioscorides, Lib. 2 , Cap. 68. 

Thus we find that Spiders have in all Ages been celebrated 
for their febrifuge Virtues; and it is worthy of Remark, that a 
Spider is usually given to Monkeys, and is esteem’d a sovereign 
Remedy for the Disorders those Animals are principally sub¬ 
ject to. 

Then follows a long account of how a dying 
woman, who had suffered nine hours a day with 
an ague during eight weeks, and who had been bled 
dry some dozens of times meantime without apparent 
benefit, was at last forced to swallow several wads of 
“Spiders-web,’’ whereupon she straightway mended, 
and promptly got well. So the sage is full of en¬ 
thusiasm over the spider-webs, and mentions only 
in the most casual way the discontinuance of the 
daily bleedings, plainly never suspecting that this 
had anything to do with the cure. 

As concerning the venomous Nature of Spiders, Scaligcr takes 
notice of a certain Species of them (which he had forgotten) 
whose Poison was of so great Force as to affect one Vinccntinus 
thro’ the Sole of his Shoe, by only treading on it. 

The sage takes that in without a strain, but the 
following case was a trifle too bulky for him, as his 
comment reveals: 

In Gascony, observes Scaliger , there is a very small Spider, 
which, running over a Looking-glass, will crack the same by the 
Force of her Poison. (A mere Fable.) 

338 


A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

But he finds no fault with the following facts: 

Remarkable is the Enmity recorded between this Creature 
and the Serpent, as also the Toad: Of the former it is reported, 
That, lying (as he thinks securely) under the Shadow of some 
Tree, the Spider lets herself down by her Thread, and, striking 
her Proboscis or Sting into the Head, with that Force and 
Efficacy, injecting likewise her venomous Juice, that, wringing 
himself about, he immediately grows giddy, and quickly after 
dies. 

When the Toad is bit or stung in Fight with this Creature, the 
Lizard, Adder, or other that is poisonous, she finds relief from 
Plantain, to which she resorts. In her Combat with the Toad, 
the Spider useth the same Stratagem as with the Serpent, hang¬ 
ing by her own Thread from the Bough of some Tree, and 
striking her Sting into her enemy’s Head, upon which the other, 
enraged, swells up, and sometimes bursts. 

To this Effect is the Relation of Erasmus , which he saith he 
had from one of the Spectators, of a Person lying along upon the 
Floor of his Chamber, in the Summer-time, to sleep in a supine 
Posture, when a Toad, creeping out of some green Rushes, 
brought just before in, to adorn the Chimney, gets upon his 
Face, and with his Feet sits across his Lips. To force off the 
Toad, says the Historian, would have been accounted sudden 
Death to the Sleeper; and to leave her there, very cruel and 
dangerous; so that upon Consultation it was concluded to find 
out a Spider, which, together with her Web, and the Window 
she was fasten’d to, was brought carefully, and so contrived as 
to be held perpendicularly to the Man’s Face; which was no 
sooner done, but the Spider, discovering his Enemy, let himself 
down, and struck in his Dart, afterwards betaking himself up 
again to his Web; the Toad swell’d, but as yet kept his station: 
The second Wound is given quickly after by the Spider, upon 
which he swells yet more, but remain’d alive still.—The Spider, 
coming down again by his Thread, gives the third Blow; and the 
Toad, taking off his Feet from over the Man’s Mouth, fell off 
dead. 

To which the sage appends this grave remark, 
“And so much for the historical Part.” Then he 

339 


MARK TWAIN 

passes on to a consideration of ‘ ‘ the Effects and Cure 
of the Poison.” 

One of the most interesting things about this 
tragedy is the double sex of the Toad, and also of 
the Spider. 

Now the sage quotes from one Turner: 

I remember, when a very young Practitioner, being sent for 
to a certain Woman, whose Custom was usually, when she went 
to the Cellar by Candlelight, to go also a Spider-hunting, setting 
Fire to their Webs, and burning them with the Flame of the 
Candle still as she pursued them. It happen’d at length, after 
this Whimsy had been follow’d a long time, one of them sold 
his Life much dearer than those Hundreds she had destroy’d; 
for, lighting upon the melting Tallow of her Candle, near the 
Flame, and his legs being entangled therein, so that he could 
not extricate himself, the Flame or Heat coming on, he was 
made a Sacrifice to his cruel Persecutor, who delighting her 
Eyes with the Spectacle, still waiting for the Flame to take hold 
of him, he presently burst with a great Crack, and threw his 
Liquor, some into her Eyes, but mostly upon her Lips; by means 
of which, flinging away her Candle, she cry’d out for Help, 
as fansying herself kill’d already with the Poison. However in 
the Night her Lips swell’d up excessively, and one of her Eyes 
was much inflam’d; also her Tongue and Gums were somewhat 
affected; and, whether from the Nausea excited by the Thoughts 
of the Liquor getting into her Mouth, or from the poisonous 
Impressions communicated by the nervous Fibrillce of those 
Parts to those of the Ventricle, a continual Vomiting attended: 
To take off which, when I was call’d, I order’d a Glass of mull’d 
Sack, with a Scruple of Salt of Wormwood, and some hours 
after a Theriacal Bolus, which she flung up again. I embro¬ 
cated the Lips with the Oil of Scorpions mix’d with the Oil of 
Roses; and, in Consideration of the Ophthalmy, tho’ I was not 
certain but the Heat of the Liquor, rais’d by the Flame of the 
Candle before the Body of the Creature burst, might, as well as 
the Venom, excite the Disturbance, (altho’ Mr. Boyle's Case of 
a Person blinded by this Liquor dropping from the living Spider, 
makes the latter sufficient;) yet observing the great Tumefaction 

340 


A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

of the Lips, together with the other Symptoms not likely to 
arise from simple Heat, I was inclin’d to believe a real Poison 
in the Case; and therefore not daring to let her Blood in the 
Arm [If a man’s throat were cut in those old days, the doctor 
would come and bleed the other end of him], I did, however, 
with good Success, set Leeches to her Temples, which took off 
much of the Inflammation; and her Pain was likewise abated, 
by instilling into her Eyes a thin Mucilage of the Seeds of 
Quinces and white Poppies extracted with Rose-water; yet the 
Swelling on the Lips increased; upon which, in the Night, she 
wore a Cataplasm prepared by boiling the Leaves of Scordium, 
Rue, and Elder-flowers, and afterwards thicken’d with the Meal 
of Vetches. In the mean time, her Vomiting having left her, 
she had given her, between whiles, a little Draught of Distill’d 
Water of Carduus Benedictus and Scordium, with some of the 
Theriaca dissolved; and upon going off of the Symptoms, an old 
Woman came luckily in, who, with Assurance suitable to those 
People, (whose Ignorance and Poverty is their Safety and Pro¬ 
tection,) took off the Dressings, promising to cure her in two 
Days’ time, altho’ she made it as many Weeks, yet had the 
Reputation of the Cure; applying only Plantain Leaves bruis’d 
and mixed with Cobwebs, dropping the Juice into her Eye, and 
giving some Spoonfuls of the same inwardly, two or three times 
a day. 

So ends the wonderful affair. Whereupon the sage 
gives Mr. Turner the following shot—strengthening 
it with italics—and passes calmly on: 

/ must remark upon this History , that the Plantain, as a 
Cooler, was much more likely to cure this Disorder than warmer 
Applications and Medicines. 

How strange that narrative sounds to-day, and 
how grotesque, when one reflects that it was a grave 
contribution to medical “science” by an old and 
reputable physician! Here was all this to-do two 
weeks of it—over a woman who had scorched her 
eye and her lips with candle grease. The poor wench 

34i 








MARK TWAIN 


is as elaborately dosed, bled, embrocated, and other¬ 
wise harried and bedeviled as if there had been 
really something the matter with her; and when a 
sensible old woman comes along at last, and treats 
the trivial case in a sensible way, the educated 
ignoramus rails at her ignorance, serenely uncon¬ 
scious of his own. It is pretty suggestive of the 
former snail-pace of medical progress that the spider 
retained his terrors during three thousand years, and 
only lost them within the last thirty or forty. 

Observe what imagination can do. “This same 
young Woman” used to be so affected by the strong 
(imaginary) smell which emanated from the burning 
spiders that “the Objects about her seem’d to turn 
round; she grew faint also with cold Sweats, and 
sometimes a light Vomiting.” There could have 
been Beer in that cellar as well as Spiders. 

Here are some more of the effects of imagination: 
“ Sennertus takes Notice of the Signs of the Bite or 
Sting of this Insect to be a Stupor or Numbness upon 
the Part, with a sense of Cold, Horror, or Swelling 
of the Abdomen, Paleness of the Face, involuntary 
Tears. Trembling, Contractions, a (. . .), Convul¬ 
sions, cold Sweats; but these latter chiefly when the 
Poison has been received inwardly,” whereas the 
modern physician holds that a few spiders taken in¬ 
wardly, by a bird or a man, will do neither party any 
harm. 

The above “Signs” are not restricted to spider 
bites—often they merely indicate fright. I have 
seen a person with a hornet in his pantaloons exhibit 
them all. 


34 ? 


A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

As to the Cure, not slighting the usual Alexipharmies taken 
internally, the Place bitten must be immediately washed with 
Salt Water, or a Sponge dipped in hot Vinegar, or fomented with 
a Decoction of Mallows, Origanum, and Mother of Thyme; after 
which a Cataplasm must be laid on of the Leaves of Bay, Rue, 
Leeks, and the Meal of Barley, boiled with Vinegar, or of Garlick 
and Onions, contused with Goat’s Dung and fat Figs. Mean¬ 
time the Patient should eat Garlick and drink Wine freely. 

As for me, I should prefer the spider bite. Let us 
close this review with a sample or two of the earth¬ 
quakes which the old-time doctor used to introduce 
into his patient when he could find room. Under 
this head we have “Alexander’s Golden Antidote,” 
which is good for—well, pretty much everything. 
It is probably the old original first patent-medicine. 
It is built as follows: 

• 

Take of Afarabocca, Henbane, Carpobalsamum, each two 
Drams and a half; of Cloves, Opium, Myrrh, Cyperus, each two 
Drams; of Opobalsamum, Indian Leaf, Cinnamon, Zedoary, 
Ginger, Coftus, Coral, Cassia, Euphorbium, Gum Tragacanth, 
Frankincense, Styrax Calamita, Celtic,^Nard, Spignel, Hartwort, 
Mustard, Saxifrage, Dill, Anise, each one Dram; of Xylaloes, 
Rheum, Ponticum, Alipta Moschata, Castor, Spikenard, Galan- 
gals, Opoponax, Anacardium, Mastich, Brimstone, Peony, 
Eringo, Pulp of Dates, red and white Hermodactyls, Roses, 
Thyme, Acorns, Penyroyal, Gentian, the Bark of the Root of 
Mandrake, Germander, Valerian, Bishops Weed, Bay-berries, 
long and white Pepper, Xylobalsamum, Carnabadium, Maco- 
donian, Parsley-seeds, Lovage, the Seeds of Rue, and Sinon, of 
each a Dram and a half; of pure Gold, pure Silver, Pearls not 
perforated, the Blatta Byzantina, the Bone of the Stag’s Heart, 
of each the Quantity of fourteen Grains of Wheat; of Sapphire, 
Emerald, and Jasper Stones, each one Dram; of Haslenut, two 
Drams; of Pellitory of Spain, Shavings of Ivory, Calamus 
Odoratus, each the-Quantity of twenty-nine Grains of Wheat; 
of Honey or Sugar a sufficient Quantity. 

2 3 343 


MARK TWAIN 


Serve with a shovel. No; one might expect such 
an injunction after such formidable preparation; but 
it is not so. The dose recommended is “the Quan¬ 
tity of an Haslenut.” Only that; it is because there 
is so much jewelry in it, no doubt. 

Aqua Limacum. Take a great Peck of Garden-snails, and 
wash them in a great deal of Beer, and make your Chimney very 
clean, and set a Bushel of Charcoal on Fire; and when they are 
thoroughly kindled, make a Hole in the Middle of the Fire, and 
put the Snails in, and scatter more Fire amongst them, and let 
them roast till they make a Noise; then take them out, and, with 
a Knife and coarse Cloth, pick and wipe away all the green froth: 
Then break them, Shells and all, in a Stone Mortar. Take also 
a Quart of Earth-worms, and scour them with Salt, divers times 
over. Then take two Handfuls of Angelica and lay them in the 
Bottom of the Still; next lay two "Handfuls of Celandine; next 
a Quart of Rosemary-flowers; then two Handfuls of Bearsfoot 
and Agrimony; then Fenugreek; then Turmerick; of each one 
Ounce: Red Dock-root, Bark of Barberry-trees, Wood-sorrel, 
Betony, of each two Handfuls.—Then lay the Snails and Worms 
on the top of the Herbs; and then two Handfuls of Goose Dung, 
and two Handfuls of Sheep Dung. Then put in three Gallons of 
Strong Ale, and place the pot where you mean to set Fire under 
it: Let it stand all Night, or longer; in the Morning put in three 
Ounces of Cloves well beaten, and a small Quantity of Saffron, 
dry’d to Powder; then six Ounces of Shavings of Hartshorn, 
which must be uppermost. Fix on the Head and Refrigeratory, 
and distil according to Art. 

There. The book does not say whether this is 
all one dose, or whether you have a right to split it 
and take a second chance at it, in case you live. 
Also, the book does not seem to specify what ailment 
it was for; but it is of no consequence, for of course 
that would come out on the inquest. 

Upon looking further, I find that this formidable 
nostrum is “good for raising Flatulencies in the 

344 


A MAJESTIC LITERARY FOSSIL 

Stomach”—meaning from the stomach, no doubt. 
So it would appear that when our progenitors chanced 
to swallow a sigh, they emptied a sewer down their 
throats to expel it. It is like dislodging skippers 
from cheese with artillery. 

When you reflect that your own father had to take 
such medicines as the above, and that you would be 
taking them to-day yourself but for the introduction 
of homeopathy, which forced the old-school doctor 
to stir around and learn something of a rational 
nature about his business, you may honestly feel 
grateful that homeopathy survived the attempts of 
the allopathists to destroy it, even though you may 
never employ any physician but an allopathist while 
you live. 

23 






AT THE APPETITE CURE 


T HIS establishment’s name is Hochberghaus. It 
is in Bohemia, a short day’s journey from 
Vienna, and being in the Austrian Empire is, of 
course, a health resort. The empire is made up of 
health resorts; it distributes health to the whole 
world. Its waters are all medicinal. They are 
bottled and sent throughout the earth; the natives 
themselves drink beer. This is self-sacrifice, appar¬ 
ently—but outlanders who have drunk Vienna beer 
have another idea about it. Particularly the Pilse- 
ner which one gets in a small cellar up an obscure 
back lane in the First Bezirk—the name has escaped 
me, but the place is easily found: You inquire for 
the Greek church; and when you get to it, go right 
along by—the next house is that little beer-mill. 
It is remote from all traffic and all noise; it is always 
Sunday there. There are two small rooms, with low 
ceilings supported by massive arches; the arches and 
ceilings are whitewashed, otherwise the rooms would 
pass for cells in the dungeons of a bastile. The 
furniture is plain and cheap, there is no ornamen- 
tation anywhere; yet it is a heaven for the self- 
sacrificers, for the beer there is incomparable; there 
is nothing like it elsewhere in the world. In the first 
room you will find twelve or fifteen ladies and gentle- 

346 


AT THE APPETITE CURE 

men of civilian quality; in the other one a dozen 
generals and ambassadors. One may live in Vienna 
many months and not hear of this place; but having 
once heard of it and sampled it the sampler will 
afterward infest it. 

However, this is all incidental—a mere passing 
note of gratitude for blessings received—it has 
nothing to do with my subject. My subject is health 
resorts. All unhealthy people ought to domicile 
themselves in Vienna, and use that as a base, 
making flights from time to time to the outlying 
resorts, according to need. A flight to Marien- 
bad to get rid of fat; a flight to Carlsbad to get 
rid of rheumatism; a flight to Kaltenleutgeben to 
take the water cure and get rid of the rest of the 
diseases. It is all so handy. You can stand in 
Vienna and toss a biscuit into Kaltenleutgeben, 
with a twelve-inch gun. You can run out thither 
at any time of the day; you go by the phenom¬ 
enally slow trains, and yet inside of an hour you 
have exchanged the glare and swelter of the city 
for wooded hills, and shady forest paths, and soft, 
cool airs, and the music of birds, and the repose 
and peace of paradise. 

And there are plenty of other health resorts at 
your service and convenient to get at from Vienna; 
charming places, all of them; Vienna sits in the 
center of a beautiful world of mountains with now 
and then a lake and forests; in fact, no other city is 
SO fortunately situated. 

There are abundance of health resorts, as I have 
said. Among them this place—Hochberghaus, It 

347 







MARK TWAIN 


stands solitary on the top of a densely wooded 
mountain, and is a building of great size. It is 
called the Appetite Anstalt, and people who have 
lost their appetites come here to get them restored. 
When I arrived I was taken by Professor Haimberger 
to his consulting-room and questioned* 

“It is six o’clock. When did you eat last?” 

“At noon.” 

“What did you eat?” 

“Next to nothing.” 

“What was on the table?” 

“The usual things.” 

“Chops, chickens, vegetables, and so on?” 

“Yes; but don’t mention them—I can’t bear it.” 

“Are you tired of them?” 

. “Oh, utterly. I wish I might never hear of them 
again.” 

“The mere sight of food offends you, does it?” 

“More, it revolts me.” 

The doctor considered awhile, then got out a long 
menu and ran his eye slowly down it. 

“I think,” said he, “that what you need to eat 
is—but here, choose for yourself.” 

I glanced at the list, and my stomach threw a 
handspring. Of all the barbarous layouts that were 
ever contrived, this was the most atrocious. At the 
top stood “tough, underdone, overdue tripe, gar¬ 
nished with garlic”; half-way down the bill stood 
“young cat; old cat; scrambled cat”; at the bottom 
stood “sailor-boots, softened with tallow—served 
raw.” The wide intervals of the bill were packed 
with dishes calculated to insult a cannibal. I said: 

343 


AT THE APPETITE CURE 

“Doctor, it is not fair to joke over so serious a 
case as mine. I came here to get an appetite, not to 
throw away the remnant that’s left.” 

He said, gravely, “I am not joking; why should 
I joke?” 

“But I can’t eat these horrors.” 

“Why not?” 

He said it with a naivete that was admirable, 
whether it was real or assumed. 

“Why not? Because—why, doctor, for months 
I have seldom been able to endure anything more 
substantial than omelettes and custards. These un¬ 
speakable dishes of yours—” 

“Oh, you will come to like them. They are very 
good. And you must eat them. It is the rule of the 
place, and is strict. I cannot permit any departure 
from it.” 

I said, smiling: “Well, then, doctor, you will have 
to permit the departure of the patient. I am 
going.” 

He looked hurt, and said in a way which changed 
the aspect of things: 

“I am sure you would not do me that injustice. 
I accepted you in good faith—you will not shame 
that confidence. This appetite cure is my whole 
living. If you should go forth from it with the sort 
of appetite which you now have, it could become 
known, and you can see, yourself, that people would 
say my cure failed in your case and hence can fail 
in other cases. You will not go; you will not do 
me this hurt.” 

I apologized and said I would stay. 

349 




MARK TWAIN 


“That is right. I was sure you would not go; 
it would take the food from my family’s mouths.” 

“Would they mind that? Do they eat these 
fiendish things?” 

“They? My family?” His eyes were full of gentle 
wonder. “Of course not.” 

“Oh, they don’t! Do you?” 

“Certainly not.” 

“I see. It’s another case of a physician who 
doesn’t take his own medicine.” 

“I don’t need it. It is six hours since you lunched. 
Will you have supper now-—or later?” 

“I am not hungry, but now is as good a time as 
any, and I would like to be done with it and have it 
off my mind. It is about my usual time, and regu¬ 
larity is commanded by all the authorities. Yes, 
I will try to nibble a little now—I wish a light horse¬ 
whipping would answer instead.” 

The professor handed me that odious menu. 

“Choose—or will you have it la.ter?” 

“Oh, dear me, show me to my room; I forgot 
your hard rule.” 

“Wait just a moment before you finally decide 
There is another rule. If you choose now, the order 
will be filled at once; but if you wait, you will have 
to await my pleasure. You cannot get a dish from 
that entire bill until I consent.” 

“All right. Show me to my room, and send 
the cook to bed; there is not going to be any 
hurry.” 

The professor took me up one flight of stairs and 
showed me into a most inviting and comfortable 

35o 


AT THE APPETITE CURE 


apartment consisting of parlor, bedchamber, and 
bath-room. 

The front windows looked out over a far-reaching 
spread of green glades and valleys, and tumbled hills 
clothed with forests—a noble solitude unvexed by 
the fussy world. In the parlor were many shelves 
filled with books. The professor said he would now 
leave me to myself; and added: 

“Smoke and read as much as you please, drink 
all the water you like. When you get hungry, ring 
and give your order, and I will decide whether it 
shall be filled or not. Yours is a stubborn, bad case, 
and I think the first fourteen dishes in the bill are 
each and all too delicate for its needs. I ask you as 
a favor to restrain yourself and not call for them.” 

“Restrain myself, is it? Give yourself no uneasi¬ 
ness. You are going to save money by me. The 
idea of coaxing a sick man’s appetite back with this 
buzzard fare is clear insanity.” 

I said it with bitterness, for I felt outraged by this 
calm, cold talk over these heartless new engines of 
assassination. The doctor looked grieved, but not 
offended. He laid the bill of fare on the commode 
at my bed’s head, “so that it would be handy,” 
and said: 

“Yours is not the worst case I have encountered, 
by any means; still it is a bad one and requires 
robust treatment; therefore I shall be gratified if you 
will restrain yourself and skip down to No. 15 and 
begin with that.” 

Then he left me and I began to undress, for I was 
dog-tired and very sleepy. I slept fifteen hours and 

35i 





MARK TWAIN 


woke up finely refreshed at ten the next morning. 
Vienna coffee! It was the first thing I thought of— 
that unapproachable luxury—that sumptuous coffee¬ 
house coffee, compared with which all other European 
coffee and all American hotel coffee is mere fluid 
poverty. I rang, and ordered it; also Vienna bread, 
that delicious invention. The servant spoke through 
the wicket in the door and said—but you know what 
he said. He referred me to the bill of fare. I 
allowed him to go—I had no further use for him. 

After the bath I dressed and started for a walk, 
and got as far as the door. It was locked on the 
outside. I rang and the-servant came and explained 
that it was another rule. The seclusion of the patient 
was required until after the first meal. I had not 
been particularly anxious to get out before; but it 
was different now. Being locked in makes a person 
wishful to get out. I soon began to find it difficult 
to put in the time. At two o’clock I had been 
twenty-six hours without food. I had been growing 
hungry for some time; I recognized that I was 
not only hungry now, but hungry with a strong 
adjective in front of it. Yet I was not hungry 
enough to face the bill of fare. 

I must put in the time somehow. I would read 
and smoke. I did it; hour by hour. The books 
were all of one breed—shipwrecks; people lost in 
deserts; people shut up in caved-in mines; people 
starving in besieged cities. I read about all the 
revolting dishes that ever famishing men had stayed 
their hunger with. During the first hours these things 
nauseated me; hours followed in which they did not 

352 



AT THE APPETITE CURE 


so affect me; still other hours followed in which I 
found myself smacking my lips over some tolerably 
infernal messes. When I had been without food 
forty-five hours I ran eagerly to the bell and ordered 
the second dish in the bill, which was a sort of 
dumplings containing a compost made of caviar and 
tar. 

It was refused me. During the next fifteen hours 
I visited the bell every now and then and ordered a 
dish that was further down the list. Always a re¬ 
fusal. But I was conquering prejudice after preju¬ 
dice, right along; I was making sure progress; I 
was creeping up on No. 15 with deadly certainty, 
and my heart beat faster and faster, my hopes rose 
higher and higher. 

At last when food had not passed my lips for 
sixty hours, victory was mine, and I ordered No. 

15 : 

“Soft-boiled spring chicken—in the egg; six 
dozen, hot and fragrant!” 

In fifteen minutes it was there; and the doctor 
along with it, rubbing his hands with joy. He said 
with great excitement: 

“It’s a cure, it’s a cure! I knew I could do it. 
Dear sir, my grand system never fails—never. 
You’ve got your appetite back—you know you 
have; say it and make me happy.” 

“Bring on your carrion—I can eat anything in 
the bill!” 

“Oh, this is noble, this is splendid—but I knew 
I could do it, the system never fails. How are the 
birds?” 


353 





MARK TWAIN 


“Never was anything so delicious in the world; 
and yet as a rule I don’t care for game. But don’t 
interrupt me, don’t— I can’t spare my mouth, I 
really can’t.” 

Then the doctor said: 

“The cure is perfect. There is no more doubt 
nor danger. Let the poultry alone; I can trust you 
with a beefsteak now.” 

The beefsteak came—as much as a basketful of 
it—with potatoes, and Vienna bread and coffee; 
and I ate a meal then that was worth all the costly 
preparation I had made for it. And dripped tears 
of gratitude into the gravy all the time—gratitude 
to the doctor for putting a little plain common sense 
into me when I had been empty of it so many, many 
years. 

II 

Thirty years ago Haimberger went off on a long 
voyage in a sailing-ship. There were fifteen pas¬ 
sengers on board. The table-fare was of the regula¬ 
tion pattern of the day: At seven in the morning, a 
cup of bad coffee in bed; at nine, breakfast: bad 
coffee, with condensed milk; soggy rolls, crackers, 
salt fish; at i p.m., luncheon: cold tongue, cold ham, 
cold corned beef, soggy cold rolls, crackers; 5 p.m., 
dinner: thick pea-soup, salt fish, hot corned beef 
and sauerkraut, boiled pork and beans, pudding; 
9 till 11 p.m., supper: tea, with condensed milk, 
cold tongue, cold ham, pickles, sea-biscuit, pickled 
oysters, pickled pig’s feet, grilled bones, golden buck. 

At the end of the first week eating had ceased, 

354 




AT THE APPETITE CURE 

nibbling had taken its place. The passengers came 
to the table, but it was partly to put in the time, and 
partly because the wisdom of the ages commanded 
them to be regular in their meals. They were tired 
of the coarse and monotonous fare, and took no 
interest in it, had no appetite for it. All day 
and every day they roamed the ship half hungry, 
plagued by their gnawing stomachs, moody, untalk- 
ative, miserable. Among them were three confirmed 
dyspeptics. These became shadows in the course 
of three weeks. There was also a bedridden invalid; 
he lived on boiled rice; he could not look at the 
regular dishes. 

Now came shipwreck and life in open boats, with 
the usual paucity of food. Provisions ran lower and 
lower. The appetites improved, then. When noth¬ 
ing was left but raw ham and the ration of that was 
down to two ounces a day per person, the appetites 
were perfect. At the end of fifteen days the dys¬ 
peptics, the invalid and the most delicate ladies in 
the party were chewing sailor-boots in ecstasy, and 
only complaining because the supply of them was 
limited. Yet these were the same people who 
couldn’t endure the ship’s tedious corned beef and 
sauerkraut and other crudities. They were rescued 
by an English vessel. Within ten days the whole 
fifteen were in as good condition as they had been 
when the shipwreck occurred. 

“They had suffered no damage by their adven¬ 
ture,” said the professor. “Do you note that?” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you note it well?” 


355 


MARK TWAIN 


“Yes—I think I do.” 

“But you don’t. You hesitate. You don’t rise 
to the importance of it. I will say it again—with 
emphasis —not one oj them suffered any damage .” 

“Now I begin to see. Yes, it was indeed re¬ 
markable.” 

“Nothing of the kind. It was perfectly natural. 
There was no reason why they should suffer damage. 
They were undergoing Nature’s Appetite Cure, the 
best and wisest in the world.” 

“Is that where you got your idea?” 

“That is where I got.it.” 

“It taught those people a valuable lesson.” 

“What makes you think that?” 

“Why shouldn’t I? You seem to think it taught 
you one.” 

“That is nothing to the point. I am not a 
fool.” 

“I see. Were they fools?” 

“They were human beings.” 

“Is it the same thing?” 

“Why do you ask? You know it yourself. As 
regards his health—and the rest of the things—the 
average man is what his environment and his super¬ 
stitions have made him; and their function is to 
make him an ass. He can’t add up three or foui 
new circumstances together and perceive what they 
mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of 
observing for himself. He has to get everything at 
second hand. If what are miscalled the lower ani¬ 
mals were as silly as man is, they would all perish 
from the earth in a year/* 

356 


AT THE APPETITE CURE 


"Those passengers learned no lesson, then?" 

"Not a sign of it. They went to their regular 
meals in the English ship, and pretty soon they were 
nibbling again—nibbling, appetiteless, disgusted with 
the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their out¬ 
raged stomachs cursing and swearing and whining 
and supplicating all day long. And in vain, for they 
were the stomachs of fools." 

"Then, as I understand it, your scheme is—" 

"Quite simple. Don’t eat till you are hungry. 
If the food fails to taste good, fails to satisfy you, 
rejoice you, comfort you, don’t eat again until you 
are very hungry. Then it will rejoice you—and do 
you good, too." 

"And I observe no regularity, as to hours?" 

"When you are conquering a bad appetite—no. 
After it is conquered, regularity is no harm, so long 
as the appetite remains good. As soon as the appe¬ 
tite wavers, apply the corrective again—which is 
starvation, long or short according to the needs of 
the case." 

"The best diet, I suppose—I mean the whole- 
somest—" 

"All diets are wholesome. Some are wholesomer 
than others, but all the ordinary diets are wholesome 
enough for the people who use them. Whether the 
food be fine or coarse, it will taste good and it will 
nourish if a watch be kept upon the appetite and a 
little starvation introduced every time it weakens. 
Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals 
were restricted to bear-meat months at a time he 
suffered no damage and no discomfort, because his 

357 






MARK TWAIN 


appetite was kept at par through the difficulty of 
getting his bear-meat regularly.” 

“But doctors arrange carefully considered and 

m 

delicate diets for invalids.” 

“They can’t help it. The invalid is full of in¬ 
herited superstitions and won’t starve himself. He 
believes it would certainly kill him.” 

“It would weaken him, wouldn’t it?” 

“Nothing to hurt. Look at the invalids in our 
shipwreck. They lived fifteen days on pinches of 
raw ham, a suck at sailor-boots, and general starva¬ 
tion. It weakened them, but it didn’t hurt them. 
It put them in fine shape to eat heartily of hearty 
food and build themselves up to a condition of robust 
health. But they did not perceive that; they lost 
their opportunity; they remained invalids; it served 
them right. Do you know the tricks that the health- 
resort doctors play?” 

“What is it?” 

‘ ‘ My system disguised—covert starvation. Grape- 
cure, bath-cure, mud-cure — it is all the same. 
The grape and the bath and the mud make a show 
and do a trifle of the work—the real work is done 
by the surreptitious starvation. The patient ac¬ 
customed to four meals and late hours—at both 
ends of the day—now consider what he has to do 
at a health resort. He gets up at six in the morning. 
Eats one egg. Tramps up and down a promenade 
two hours with the other fools. Eats a butterfly. 
Slowly drinks a glass of filtered sewage that smells 
like a buzzard’s breath. Promenades another two 
hours, but alone; if you speak to him he says 

35S 


AT THE APPETITE CURE 


anxiously, ‘My water! — I am walking off my 
water!—please don’t interrupt,’ and goes stumping 
along again. Eats a candied rose-leaf. Lies at rest 
in the silence and solitude of his room for hours; 
mustn’t speak, mustn’t read, mustn’t smoke. The 
doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his 
pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his 
stomach, and listens for results through a penny 
flageolet; then orders the man’s bath—half a degree, 
Reaumur, cooler than yesterday. After the bath, 
another egg. A glass of sewage at three or four in the 
afternoon, and promenade solemnly with the other 
freaks. Dinner at six—half a doughnut and a cup 
of tea. Walk again. Half past eight, supper—more 
butterfly; at nine, to bed. Six weeks of this regime 
—think of it. It starves a man out and puts him in 
splendid condition. It would have the same effect 
in London, New York, Jericho—anywhere.” 

“How long does it take to put a person in con¬ 
dition here?” 

“It ought to take but a day or two; but in fact 
it takes from one to six weeks, according to the 
character and mentality of the patient.” 

“How is that?” 

“Do you see that crowd of women playing foot¬ 
ball, and boxing, and jumping fences yonder? They 
have been here six or seven weeks. They were 
spectral poor weaklings when they came. They 
were accustomed to nibbling at dainties and deli¬ 
cacies at set hours four times a day, and they had no 
appetite for anything. I questioned them, and then 
locked them into their rooms, the frailest ones to 

359 


24 






MARK TWAIN 


starve nine or ten hours, the others twelve or fifteen. 
Before long they began to beg; and indeed they 
suffered a good deal. They complained of nausea, 
headache, and so on. It was good to see them eat 
when the time was up. They could not remember 
when the devouring of a meal had afforded them 
such rapture—that was their word. Now, then, 
that ought to have ended their cure, but it didn’t. 
They were free to go to any meals in the house, and 
they chose their accustomed four. Within a day or 
two I had to interfere. Their appetites were 
weakening. I made them knock out a meal. That 
set them up again. Then they resumed the four. I 
begged them to learn to knock out a meal themselves, 
without waiting for me. Up to a fortnight ago they 
couldn’t; they really hadn’t manhood enough; but 
they were gaining it, and now I think they are safe. 
They drop out a meal every now and then of their 
own accord. They are in fine condition now, and 
they might safely go home, I think, but their con¬ 
fidence is not quite perfect yet, so they are waiting 
awhile.” 

“Other cases are different?” 

“Oh, yes. Sometimes a man learns the whole 
trick in a week. Learns to regulate his appetite and 
keep it in perfect order. Learns to drop out a meal 
with frequency and not mind it.” 

“But why drop the entire meal out? Why not a 
part of it?” 

“It’s a poor device, and inadequate. If the 
stomach doesn’t call vigorously—with a shout, as 
you may say—it is better not to pester it, but just 

36° 



AT THE APPETITE CURE 


give it a real rest. Some people can eat more meals 
than others, and still thrive. There are all sorts of 
people, and all sorts of appetites. I will show you 
a man presently who was accustomed to nibble at 
eight meals a day. It was beyond the proper gait 
of his appetite by two. I have got him down to 
six a day, now, and he is all right, and enjoys life. 
How many meals do you effect per day?” 

“Formerly—for twenty-two years—a meal and 
a half; during the past two years, two and a half: 
coffee and a roll at nine, luncheon at one, dinner at 
seven-thirty or eight.” 

“Formerly a meal and a half—that is, coffee and 
a roll at nine, dinner in the evening, nothing be¬ 
tween—is that it?” 

“Yes.” 

‘ ‘ Why did you add a meal ?” 

“It was the family’s idea. They were uneasy. 
They thought I was killing myself.” 

“You found a meal and a half per day enough, 
all through the twenty-two years?” 

“Plenty.” 

“Your present poor condition is due to the extra 
meal. Drop it out. You are trying to eat oftener 
than your stomach demands. You don’t gain, you 
lose. You eat less food now, in a day, on two and 
a half meals, than you formerly ate on one and a 
half.” 

“True—a good deal less; for in those old days 
my dinner was a very sizable thing.” 

! > “Put yourself on a single meal a day, now— 
dinner—for a few days, till you secure a good, 
24 361 




MARK TWAIN 


sound, regular, trustworthy appetite, then take to 
your one and a half permanently, and don’t listen to 
the family any more. When you have any ordinary 
ailment, particularly of a feverish sort, eat nothing 
at all during twenty-four hours. That will cure it. 
It will cure the stubbornest cold in the head, too. 
No cold in the head can survive twenty-four hours 
on modified starvation.” 

“I know it. I have proved it many a time.” 



SAINT JOAN OF ARC 


CHAPTER I 

T HE evidence furnished at the Trials and Re¬ 
habilitation sets forth Joan of Arc’s strange 
and beautiful history in clear and minute detail. 
Among all the multitude of biographies that freight 
the shelves of the world’s libraries, this is the only 
one whose validity is confirmed to us by oath. It gives 
us a vivid picture of a career and a personality of so 
extraordinary’ a character that we are helped to ac¬ 
cept them as actualities by the very’ fact that both 
are beyond the inventive reach of fiction. The 
public part of the career occupied only a mere 
breath of time—it covered but two years; but what 
a career it was! The personality which made it pos- 

Note. —The Official Record of the Trials and Rehabilitation of 
Joan of Arc is the most remarkable history that exists in any lan¬ 
guage; yet there are few people in the world who can say they have 
read it: in England and America it has hardly been heard of. 

Three hundred years ago Shakespeare did not know the true story 
erf Joan of Arc; in his day it was unknown even in France. For four 
hundred years it existed rather as a vaguely defined romance than 
as definite and authentic history. The true story remained buried 
in the official archives of France from the Rehabilitation of 1456 
until Quicherat dug it out and gave it to the world two generations 
ago, in lucid and understandable modem French. It is a deeply 
fascinating story. But only in the Official Trials and Rehabilita¬ 
tion can it be found in its entirety.—M. T. 

3^3 







MARK TWAIN 


sible is one to be reverently studied, loved, and mar¬ 
veled at, but not to be wholly understood and ac¬ 
counted for by even the most searching analysis. 

In Joan of Arc at the age of sixteen there was no 
promise of a romance. She lived in a dull little vil¬ 
lage on the frontiers of civilization; she had been no¬ 
where and had seen nothing; she knew none but 
simple shepherd folk; she had never seen a person of 
note; she hardly knew what a soldier looked like; she 
had never ridden a horse, nor had a warlike weapon 
in her hand; she could neither read nor write: she 
could spin and sew; she knew her catechism and her 
prayers and the fabulous histories of the saints, and 
this was all her learning. That was Joan at sixteen. 
What did she know of law? of evidence? of courts? 
of the attorney’s trade? of legal procedure? Noth¬ 
ing. Less than nothing. Thus exhaustively equip¬ 
ped with ignorance, she went before the court at 
Toul to contest a false charge of breach of promise 
of marriage; she conducted her cause herself, with¬ 
out any one’s help or advice or any one’s friendly 
sympathy, and won it. She called no witnesses of 
her own, but vanquished the prosecution by using 
with deadly effectiveness its own testimony. The 
astonished judge threw the case out of court, and 
spoke of her as “this marvelous child.” 

She went to the veteran Commandant of Vaucou-' 
leurs and demanded an escort of soldiers, saying she 
must march to the help of the King of France, since 
she was commissioned of God to win back his lost 
kingdom for him and set the crown upon his head. 
The Commandant said, “What, you? You are only 

364 


SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

a child.” And he advised that she be taken back to 
her village and have her ears boxed. But she said 
she must obey God, and would come again, and 
again, and yet again, and finally she would get the 
soldiers. She said truly. In time he yielded, after 
months of delay and refusal, and gave her the 
soldiers; and took off his sword and gave her that, 
and said, “Go—and let come what may.” She made 
her long and perilous journey through the enemy’s 
country, and spoke with the King, and convinced 
him. Then she was summoned before the Uni¬ 
versity of Poitiers to prove that she was commis¬ 
sioned of God and not of Satan, and daily during 
three weeks she sat before that learned congress un¬ 
afraid, and capably answered their deep questions 
out of her ignorant but able head and her simple and 
honest heart; and again she won her case, and with 
it the wondering admiration of all that august com¬ 
pany. 

And now, aged seventeen, she was made Com- 
mander-in-Chief, with a prince of the royal house 
and the veteran generals of France for subordinates; 
and at the head of the first army she had ever seen, 
she marched to Orleans, carried the commanding 
fortresses of the enemy by storm in three desperate 
assaults, and in ten days raised a siege which had 
defied the might of France for seven months. 

After a tedious and insane delay caused by the 
King’s instability of character and the treacherous 
counsels of his ministers, she got permission to take 
the field again. She took Jargeau by storm; then 
Meung; she forced Beaugency to surrender; then— 

36s 



MARK TWAIN 


in the open field—she won the memorable victory of 
Patay against Talbot, “the English lion,” and broke 
the back of the Hundred Years’ War. It was a 
campaign which cost but seven weeks of time; yet 
the political results would have been cheap if the 
time expended had been fifty years. Patay, that 
unsung and now long-forgotten battle, was the Mos¬ 
cow of the English power in France; from the blow 
struck that day it was destined never to recover. It 
was the beginning of the end of an alien dominion 
which had ridden France intermittently for three 
hundred years. 

Then followed the great campaign of the Loire, 
the capture of Troyes by assault, and the triumphal 
march past surrendering towns and fortresses to 
Rheims, where Joan put the crown upon her King’s 
head in the Cathedral, amid wild public rejoicings, 
and with her old peasant father there to see these 
things and believe his eyes if he could. She had re¬ 
stored the crown and the lost sovereignty; the King 
was grateful for once in his shabby poor life, and 
asked her to name her reward and have it. She 
asked for nothing for herself, but begged that the 
taxes of her native village might be remitted forever. 
The prayer was granted, and the promise kept for 
three hundred and sixty years. Then it was broken, 
and remains broken to-day. France was very poor 
then, she is very rich now; but she has been collecting 
those taxes for more than a hundred years. 

Joan asked one other favor: that now that her 
mission was fulfilled she might be allowed to go back 
to her village and take up her humble life again with 

366 


SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

her mother and the friends of her childhood; for she 
had no pleasure in the cruelties of war, and the sight 
of blood and suffering wrung her heart. Sometimes 
in battle she did not draw her sword, lest in the 
splendid madness of the onset she might forget her¬ 
self and take an enemy’s life with it. In the Rouen 
Trials, one of her quaintest speeches—coming from 
the gentle and girlish source it did was her naive 
remark that she had “never killed any one.” Her 
prayer for leave to go back to the rest and peace of 
her village home was not granted. 

Then she wanted to march at once upon Paris, 
take it, and drive the English out of France. She 
was hampered in all the ways that treachery and the 
King’s vacillation could devise, but she forced her 
way to Paris at last, and fell badly wounded in a 
successful assault upon one of the gates. Of course 
her men lost heart at once—she was the only heart 
they had. They fell back. She begged to be al¬ 
lowed to remain at the front, saying victory was sure. 
“I will take Paris now or die!” she said. But she 
was removed from the field by force; the King 
ordered a retreat, and actually disbanded his army. 
In accordance with a beautiful old military custom 
Joan devoted her silver armor and hung it up in the 
Cathedral of St. Denis. Its great days were over. 

Then, by command, she followed the King and his 
frivolous court and endured a gilded captivity for a 
time, as well as her free spirit could; and whenever 
inaction became unbearable she gathered some men 
together and rode away and assaulted a stronghold 
and captured it. 


367 







MARK TWAIN 


At last in a sortie against the enemy, from Com- 
piegne, on the 24th of May (when she was turned 
eighteen), she was herself captured, after a gallant 
fight. It was her last battle. She was to follow the 
drums no more. 

Thus ended the briefest epoch-making military 
career known to history. It lasted only a year and 
a month, but it found France an English province, 
and furnishes the reason that France is France to-day 
and not an English province still. Thirteen months! 
It was, indeed, a short career; but in the centuries 
that have since elapsed five hundred millions of 
Frenchmen have lived and died blest by the benefac¬ 
tions it conferred; and so long as France shall endure, 
the mighty debt must grow. And France is grateful; 
we often hear her say'it. Also thrifty: she collects 
the Domremy taxes. 


CHAPTER II 


J OAN was fated to spend the rest of her life behind 
bolts and bars. She was a prisoner of war, not a 
criminal, therefore hers was recognized as an honor¬ 
able captivity. By the rules of war she must be 
held to ransom, and a fair price could not be refused 
if offered. John of Luxembourg paid her the just 
compliment of requiring a prince’s ransom for her. 
In that day that phrase represented a definite sum— 
61,125 francs. It was, of course, supposable that 
either the King or grateful France, or both, would 
fly with the money and set their fair young bene¬ 
factor free. But this did not happen. In five and 
a half months neither King nor country stirred a 
hand nor offered a penny. Twice Joan tried to 
escape. Once by a trick she succeeded for a mo¬ 
ment, and locked her jailer in behind her, but she 
was discovered and caught; in the other case she let 
herself down from a tower sixty feet high, but her 
rope was too short, and she got a fall that disabled 
her and she could not get away. 

Finally, Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, paid the 
money and bought Joan—ostensibly for the Church, 
to be tried for wearing male attire and for other 
impieties, but really for the English, the enemy into 
whose hands the poor girl was so piteously anxious 

369 






MARK TWAIN 


not to fall. She was now shut up in the dungeons 
of the Castle of Rouen and kept in an iron cage, 
with her hands and feet and neck chained to a pillar; 
and from that time forth during all the months of 
her imprisonment, till the end, several rough English 
soldiers stood guard over her night and day—and 
not outside her room, but in it. It was a dreary and 
hideous captivity, but it did not conquer her: nothing 
could break that invincible spirit. From first to last 
she was a prisoner a year; and she spent the last 
three months of it on trial for her life before a for¬ 
midable array of ecclesiastical judges, and disputing 
the ground with them foot by foot and inch by inch 
with brilliant generalship and dauntless pluck. The 
spectacle of that solitary girl, forlorn and friendless, 
without advocate or adviser, and without the help 
and guidance of any copy of the charges brought 
against her or rescript of the complex and voluminous 
daily proceedings of the court to modify the crushing 
strain upon her astonishing memory, fighting that 
long battle serene and undismayed against these 
colossal odds, stands alone in its pathos and its 
sublimity; it has nowhere its mate, either in the 
annals of fact or in the inventions of fiction. 

And how fine and great were the things she daily 
said, how fresh and crisp—and she so worn in body, 
so starved, and tired, and harried! They run 
through the whole gamut of feeling and expression— 
from scorn and defiance, uttered with soldierly fire 
and frankness, all down the scale to wounded dignity 
clothed in words of noble pathos; as, when her pa¬ 
tience was exhausted by the pestering delvings and 

37 ° 


SAINT JOAN OP ARC 

gropings and searchings of her persecutors to find 
out what kind of devil’s witchcraft she had employed 
to rouse the war spirit in her timid soldiers, she 
burst out with, “What I said was, 1 Ride these Eng¬ 
lish down ’—and I did it myself!” and as, when in¬ 
sultingly asked why it was that her standard had 
place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral 
of Rheims rather than the standards of the other 
captains, she uttered that touching speech, 11 It had 
borne the burden , it had earned the honor ”—a phrase 
which fell from her lips without premeditation, yet 
whose moving beauty and simple grace it would 
bankrupt the arts of language to surpass. 

Although she was on trial for her life, she was the 
only witness called on either side; the only witness 
summoned to testify before a packed jury commis¬ 
sioned with a definite task: to find her guilty, whether 
she was guilty or not. She must be convicted out of 
her own mouth, there being no other way to accom¬ 
plish it. Every advantage that learning has over 
ignorance, age over youth, experience over inex¬ 
perience, chicane over artlessness, every trick and 
trap and gin devisable by malice and the cunning of 
sharp intellects practised in setting snares for the 
unwary—all these were employed against her with¬ 
out shame; and when these arts were one by one de¬ 
feated by the marvelous intuitions of her alert and 
penetrating mind, Bishop Cauchon stooped to a final 
baseness which it degrades human speech to de¬ 
scribe: a priest who pretended to come from the 
region of her own home and to be a pitying friend 
and anxious to help her in her sore need was smug- 

371 




MARK TWAIN 


gled into her cell, and he misused his sacred office to 
steal her confidence; she confided to him the things 
sealed from revealment by her Voices, and which her 
prosecutors had tried so long in vain to trick her 
into betraying. A concealed confederate set it all 
down and delivered it to Cauchon, who used Joan’s 
secrets, thus obtained, for her ruin. 

Throughout the Trials, whatever the foredoomed 
witness said was twisted from its true meaning when 
possible, and made to tell against her; and whenever 
an answer of hers was beyond the reach of twisting 
it was not allowed to go upon the record. It was 
upon one of these latter occasions that she uttered 
that pathetic reproach—to Cauchon: “Ah, you set 
down everything that is against me, but you will not 
set down what is for me.” 

That this untrained young creature’s genius for 
war was wonderful, and her generalship worthy to 
rank with the ripe products of a tried and trained 
military experience, we have the sworn testimony 
of two of her veteran subordinates—one, the Due 
d’Alengon, the other the greatest of the French gen¬ 
erals of the time, Dunois, Bastard of Orleans; that 
her genius was as great—possibly even greater—in 
the subtle warfare of the forum we have for witness 
the records of the Rouen Trials, that protracted ex¬ 
hibition of intellectual fence maintained with credit 
against the master-minds of France; that her moral 
greatness was peer to her intellect we call the Rouen 
Trials again to witness, with their testimony to a 
fortitude which patiently and steadfastly endured 
during twelve weeks the wasting forces of captivity, 

3/2 



SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

chains, loneliness, sickness, darkness, hunger, thirst, 
cold, shame, insult, abuse, broken sleep, treachery, 
ingratitude, exhausting sieges of cross-examination, 
the threat of torture, with the rack before her and 
the executioner standing ready: yet never surren¬ 
dering, never asking quarter, the frail wreck of her 
as unconquerable the last day as was her invincible 
spirit the first. 

Great as she was in so many ways, she was per¬ 
haps even greatest of all in the lofty things just 
named—her patient endurance, her steadfastness, 
her granite fortitude. We may not hope to easily 
find her mate and twin in these majestic qualities; 
where we lift our eyes highest we find only a strange 
and curious contrast—there in the captive eagle 
beating his broken wings on the Rock of St. Helena. 





CHAPTER III 


T HE Trials ended with her condemnation. But as 
she had conceded nothing, confessed nothing, this 
was victory for her, defeat for Cauchon. But his 
evil resources were not yet exhausted. She was per¬ 
suaded to agree to sign a paper of slight import, then 
by treachery a paper was substituted which con¬ 
tained a recantation and a detailed confession of 
everything which had been charged against her dur¬ 
ing the Trials and denied and repudiated by her 
persistently during the three months; and this false 
paper she ignorantly signed. This was a victory for 
Cauchon. He followed it eagerly and pitilessly up 
by at once setting a trap for her which she could not 
escape. When she realized this she gave up the long 
struggle, denounced the treason which had been 
practised against her, repudiated the false confes¬ 
sion, reasserted the truth of the testimony which she 
had given in the Trials, and went to her martyrdom 
with the peace of God in her tired heart, and on her 
lips endearing words and loving prayers for the cur 
she had crowned and the nation of ingrates she had 
saved. 

When the fires rose about her and she begged for 
a cross for her dying lips to kiss, it was not a friend 
but an enemy, not a Frenchman but an alien, not 

374 


SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

a comrade in arms but an English soldier, that an¬ 
swered that pathetic prayer. He broke a stick 
across his knee, bound the pieces together in the 
form of the symbol she so loved, and gave it her; 
and his gentle deed is not forgotten, nor will be. 

25 







CHAPTER IV 


T WENTY-FIVE years afterward the Process of 
Rehabilitation was instituted, there being a grow¬ 
ing doubt as to the validity of a sovereignty that had 
been rescued and set upon its feet by a person who 
had been proven by the Church to be a witch and 
a familiar of evil spirits. Joan’s old generals, her 
secretary, several aged relations and other villagers 
of Domremy, surviving judges and secretaries of the 
Rouen and Poitiers Processes—a cloud of witnesses, 
some of whom had been her enemies and persecutors 
—came and made oath and testified; and what they 
said was written down. In that sworn testimony 
the moving and beautiful history of Joan of Arc is 
laid bare, from her childhood to her martyrdom. 
From the verdict she rises stainlessly pure, in mind 
and heart, in speech and deed and spirit, and will so 
endure to the end of time. 

She is the Wonder of the Ages. And when we 
consider her origin, her early circumstances, her sex, 
and that she did all the things upon which her 
renown rests while she was still a young girl, we 
recognize that while our race continues she will be 
also the Riddle of the Ages. When we set about 
accounting for a Napoleon or a Shakespeare or a 
Raphael or a Wagner or an Edison or other extraor- 

376 


SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

dinary person, we understand that the measure of 
his talent will not explain the whole result, nor even 
the largest part of it; no, it is the atmosphere in 
which the talent was cradled that explains; it is the 
training which it received while it grew, the nurture 
it got from reading, study, example, the encourage¬ 
ment it gathered from self-recognition and recogni¬ 
tion from the outside at each stage of its develop¬ 
ment : when we know all these details, then we know 
why the man was ready when his opportunity came. 
We should expect Edison’s surroundings and atmos¬ 
phere to have the largest share in discovering him 
to himself and to the world; and we should expect 
him to live and die undiscovered in a land where an 
inventor could find no comradeship, no sympathy, 
no ambition-rousing atmosphere of recognition and 
applause—Dahomey, for instance. Dahomey could 
not find an Edison out; in Dahomey an Edison could 
not find himself out. Broadly speaking, genius is 
not born with sight, but blind; and it is not itself 
that opens its eyes, but the subtle influences of a 
myriad of stimulating exterior circumstances. 

We all know this to be not a guess, but a mere 
commonplace fact, a truism. Lorraine was Joan of 
Arc’s Dahomey. And there the Riddle confronts us. 
We can understand how she could be born with 
military genius, with leonine courage, with incom¬ 
parable fortitude, with a mind which was in several 
particulars a prodigy—a mind which included among 
its specialties the lawyer’s gift of detecting traps laid 
by the adversary in cunning and treacherous ar¬ 
rangements of seemingly innocent words, the orator’s 
25 377 





MARK TWAIN 


gift of eloquence, the advocate’s gift of presenting a 
case in clear and compact form, the judge’s gift of 
sorting and weighing evidence, and finally, some¬ 
thing recognizable as more than a mere trace of the 
statesman’s gift of understanding a political situation 
and how to make profitable use of such opportunities 
as it offers; we can comprehend how she could be 
born with these great qualities, but we cannot com¬ 
prehend how they became immediately usable and 
effective without the developing forces of a sympa¬ 
thetic atmosphere and the training which comes of 
teaching, study, practice—years of practice—and the 
crowning and perfecting help of a thousand mistakes. 
We can understand how the possibilities of the 
future perfect peach are all lying hid in the humble 
bitter-almond, but we cannot conceive of the peach 
springing directly from the almond without the in¬ 
tervening long seasons of patient cultivation and 
development. Out of a cattle-pasturing peasant 
village lost in the remotenesses of an unvisited wil¬ 
derness and atrophied with ages of stupefaction and 
ignorance we cannot see a Joan of Arc issue equipped 
to the last detail for her amazing career and hope to 
be able to explain the riddle of it, labor at it as 
we may. 

It is beyond us. All the rules fail in this girl’s 
case. In the world’s history she stands alone—quite 
alone. Others have been great in their first public 
exhibitions of generalship, valor, legal talent, diplo¬ 
macy, fortitude; but always their previous years and 
associations had been in a larger or smaller degree a 
preparation for these things. There have been no 

378 





SAINT JOAN OP ARC 

exceptions to the rule. But Joan was competent in 
a law case at sixteen without ever having seen a law¬ 
book or a court-house before; she had no training in 
soldiership and no associations with it, yet she was a 
competent general in her first campaign; she was 
brave in her first battle, yet her courage had had no 
education—not even the education which a boy’s 
courage gets from never-ceasing reminders that it is 
not permissible in a boy to be a coward, but only in 
a girl; friendless, alone, ignorant, in the blossom of 
her youth, she sat week after week, a prisoner in 
chains, before her assemblage of judges, enemies 
hunting her to her death, the ablest minds in France, 
and answered them out of an untaught wisdom 
which overmatched their learning, baffled their tricks 
and treacheries with a native sagacity which com¬ 
pelled their wonder, and scored every day a victory 
against these incredible odds and camped unchal¬ 
lenged on the field. In the history of the human in¬ 
tellect, untrained, inexperienced, and using only its 
birthright equipment of untried capacities, there is 
nothing which approaches this. Joan of Arc stands 
alone, and must continue to stand alone, by reason 
of the unfellowed fact that in the things wherein she 
was great she was so without shade or suggestion of 
help from preparatory teaching, practice, environ¬ 
ment, or experience. There is no one to compare 
her with, none to measure her by; for all others 
among the illustrious grew toward their high place 
in an atmosphere and surroundings which discovered 
their gift to them and nourished it and promoted it, 
intentionally or unconsciously, There have been 

379 


MARK TWAIN 


other young generals, but they were not girls; young 
generals, but they had been soldiers before they were 
generals: she began as a general; she commanded 
the first army she ever saw; she led it from victory 
to victory, and never lost a battle with it; there 
have been young commanders-in-chief, but none so 
young as she: she is the only soldier in history who 
has held the supreme command of a nation’s armies 
at the age of seventeen. 

Her history has still another feature which sets her 
apart and leaves her without fellow or competitor: 
there have been many uninspired prophets, but she 
was the only one who ever ventured the daring de¬ 
tail of naming, along with a foretold event, the 
event’s precise nature, the special time-limit within 
which it would occur, and the place —and scored ful¬ 
filment. At Vaucouleurs she said she must go to the 
King and be made his general, and break the Eng¬ 
lish power, and crown her sovereign—“at Rheims.” 
It all happened. It was all to happen “next year” 
—and it did. She foretold her first wound and its 
character and date a month in advance, and the 
prophecy was recorded in a public record-book three 
weeks in advance. She repeated it the morning of 
the date named, and it was fulfilled before night. 
At Tours she foretold the limit of her military career 
—saying it would end in one year from the time of 
its utterance—and she was right. She foretold her 
martyrdom—using that word , and naming a time 
three months away—and again she was right. At a 
time when France seemed hopelessly and perma¬ 
nently in the hands of the English she twice asserted 

380 





SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

in her prison before her judges that within seven 
years the English would meet with a mightier dis¬ 
aster than had been the fall of Orleans: it happened 
within five—the fall of Paris. Other prophecies of 
hers came true, both as to the event named and the 
time-limit prescribed. 

She was deeply religious, and believed that she had 
daily speech with angels; that she saw them face to 
face, and that they counseled her, comforted and 
heartened her, and brought commands to her direct 
from God. She had a childlike faith in the heavenly 
origin of her apparitions and her Voices, and not any 
threat of any form of death was able to frighten it 
out of her loyal heart. She was a beautiful and 
simple and lovable character. In the records of the 
Trials this comes out in clear and shining detail. 
She was gentle and winning and affectionate; she 
loved her home and friends and her village life; she 
was miserable in the presence of pain and suffering; 
she was full of compassion: on the field of her most 
splendid victory she forgot her triumphs to hold in 
her lap the head of a dying enemy and comfort his 
passing spirit with pitying words; in an age when it 
was common to slaughter prisoners she stood daunt¬ 
less between hers and harm, and saved them alive; 
she was forgiving, generous, unselfish, magnanimous; 
she was pure from all spot or stain of baseness. 
And always she was a girl; and dear and worshipful, 
as is meet for that estate: when she fell wounded, the 
first time, she was frightened, and cried when she 
saw her blood gushing from her breast; but she was 
Joan of Arc! and when presently she found that her 

3S1 


MARK TWAIN 


generals were sounding the retreat, she staggered to 
her feet and led the assault again and took that 
place by storm. 

There is no blemish in that rounded and beautiful 
character. 

How strange it is!—that almost invariably the 
artist remembers only one detail—one minor and 
meaningless detail of the personality of Joan of Arc: 
to wit, that she was a peasant girl—and forgets all 
the rest; and so he paints her as a strapping middle- 
aged fishwoman, with costume to match, and in her 
face the spirituality of a ham. He is slave to his 
one idea, and forgets to observe that the supremely 
great souls are never lodged in gross bodies. No 
brawn, no muscle, could endure the work that their 
bodies must do; they do their miracles by the spirit, 
which has fifty times the strength and staying- 
power of brawn and muscle. The Napoleons are 
little, not big; and they work twenty hour£ in the 
twenty-four, and come up fresh, while the big soldiers 
with the little hearts faint around them with fatigue. 
We know what Joan of Arc was like, without asking 
—merely by what she did. The artist should paint 
her spirit —then he could not fail to paint her body 
aright. She would rise before us, then, a vision to 
win us, not repel: a lithe young slender figure, instinct 
with “the unbought grace of youth,” dear and 
bonny and lovable, the face beautiful, and trans¬ 
figured with the light of that lustrous intellect and 
the fires of that unquenchable spirit. 

Taking into account, as I have suggested before, 
all the circumstances—her origin, youth, sex, illit- 

382 





SAINT JOAN OF ARC 

eracy, early environment, and the obstructing con¬ 
ditions under which she exploited her high gifts and 
made her conquests in the field and before the courts 
that tried her for her life—she is easily and by far 
the most extraordinary person the human race has 
ever produced. 



IN MEMORIAM 


OLIVIA SUSAN CLEMENS 
Died August 18, 1896; Aged 24 

I N a fair valley—oh, how long ago, how long ago! 

Where all the broad expanse was clothed in vines 
And fruitful fields and meadows starred with flowers, 
And clear streams wandered at their idle will, 

And still lakes slept, their burnished surfaces 
A dream of painted clouds, and soft airs 
Went whispering with odorous breath, 

And all was peace—in that fair vale, 

Shut from the troubled world, a nameless hamlet 
drowsed. 

Hard by, apart, a temple stood; 

And strangers from the outer world 
Passing, noted it with tired eyes, 

And seeing, saw it not: 

A glimpse of its fair form—an answering momentary 
thrill— 

And they passed on, careless and unaware. 

They could not know the cunning of its make; 

They could not know the secret shut up in its heart; 
Only the dwellers of the hamlet knew: 

They knew that what seemed brass was gold; 

3 8 4 



IN MEMORIAM 

What marble seemed, was ivory; 

The glories that enriched the milky surfaces— 

The trailing vines, and interwoven flowers, 

And tropic birds awing, clothed all in tinted fire— 
They knew for what they were, not what they 
seemed: 

Incrustings all of gems, not perishable splendors of 
the brush. 

They knew the secret spot where one must stand— 
They knew the surest hour, the proper slant of sun— 
To gather in, unmarred, undimmed, 

The vision of the fane in all its fairy grace, 

A fainting dream against the opal sky. 

And more than this. They knew 
That in the temple’s inmost place a spirit dwelt, 
Made all of light! 

For glimpses of it they had caught 
Beyond the curtains when the priests 
That served the altar came and went. 

All loved that light and held it dear 
That had this partial grace; 

But the adoring priests alone who lived 
By day and night submerged in its immortal glow 
Knew all its power and depth, and could appraise 
the loss 

If it should fade and fail and come no more. 

All this was long ago—so long ago! 

The light burned on; and they that worshiped it, 
And they that caught its flash at intervals and held 
it dear, 


385 




MARK TWAIN 


Contented lived in its secure possession. Ah, 

How long ago it was! 

And then when they 

Were nothing fearing, and God’s peace was in the air, 
And none was prophesying harm— 

The vast disaster fell: 

Where stood the temple when the sun went down, 
Was vacant desert when it rose again! 

Ah, yes! ’Tis ages since it chanced! 

So long ago it was, 

That from the memory of the hamlet-folk the Light 
has passed— 

They scarce believing, now, that once.it was, 

Or, if believing, yet not missing it, 

And reconciled to have it gone. 

Not so the priests! Oh, not so 
The stricken ones that served it day and night, 
Adoring it, abiding in the healing of its peace: 

They stand, yet, where erst they stood 
Speechless in that dim morning long ago; 

And still they gaze, as then they gazed, 

And murmur, ‘ ‘ It will come again; 

It knows our pain—it knows—it knows— 

Ah, surely it will come again.” 

S. L. C. 

Lake Lucerne, August 18, 1897. 


MARK TWAIN 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

By Samuel E. Moffett 

I N 1835 the creation of the Western empire of 
America had just begun. In the whole region 
west of the Mississippi, which now contains twenty- 
one million people—nearly twice the entire popula¬ 
tion of the United States at that time—there were 
less than half a million white inhabitants. There 
were only two states beyond the great river, Lou¬ 
isiana and Missouri. There were only two consider¬ 
able groups of population, one about New Orleans, 
the other about St. Louis. If we omit New Orleans, 
which is east of the river, there was only one place 
in all that vast domain with any pretension to be 
called a city. That was St. Louis, and that me¬ 
tropolis, the wonder and pride of all the Western 
country, had no more than ten thousand inhabitants. 

It was in this frontier region, on the extreme fringe 
of settlement “that just divides the desert from the 
sown,” that Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born, 
November 30, 1835, in the hamlet of Florida, Mis¬ 
souri. His parents had come there to be in the 
thick of the Western boom, and by a fate for which 
no lack of foresight on their part was to blame, 
they found themselves in a place which succeeded 

387 







MARK TWAIN 

in accumulating one hundred and twenty-five in¬ 
habitants in the next sixty years. When we read of 
the westward sweep of population and wealth in the 
United States, it seems as if those who were in the 
van of that movement must have been inevitably 
carried on to fortune. But that was a tide full of 
eddies and back-currents, and Mark Twain’s parents 
possessed a faculty for finding them that appears 
nothing less than miraculous. The whole Western 
empire was before them where to choose. They 
could have bought the entire site of Chicago for a 
pair of boots. They could have ‘taken up a farm 
within the present city limits of St. Louis. What 
they actually did was to live for a time in Columbia, 
Kentucky, with a small property in land, and six 
inherited slaves, then to move to Jamestown, on the 
Cumberland plateau of Tennessee, a place that was 
then no farther removed from the currents of the 
world’s life than Uganda, but which no resident of 
that or any other part of Central Africa would now 
regard as a serious competitor, and next to migrate 
to Missouri, passing St. Louis and settling first in 
Florida, and afterward in Hannibal. But when the 
whole map was blank the promise of fortune glowed 
as rosily in these regions as anywhere else. Florida 
had great expectations when Jackson was President. 
When John Marshall Clemens took up eighty thou¬ 
sand acres of land in Tennessee, he thought he had 
established his children as territorial magnates. 
That phantom vision of wealth furnished later one 
of the motives of The Gilded Age. It conferred 
no other benefit. 


388 







A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


If Samuel Clemens missed a fortune, he inherited 




l 

■ 

i 


good blood. On both sides his family had been 
settled in the South since early colonial times. His 
father, John Marshall Clemens, of Virginia, was a 
descendant of Gregory Clemens, who became one of 
the judges that condemned Charles I. to death, was 
excepted from the amnesty after the Restoration in 
consequence, and lost his head. A cousin of John 
M. Clemens, Jeremiah Clemens, represented Ala¬ 
bama in the United States Senate from 1849 to 1853. 

Through his mother, Jane Lampton (Lambton), 
the boy was descended from the Lambtons of Dur¬ 
ham, whose modern English representatives still 
possess the lands held by their ancestors of the same 
name since the twelfth century. Some of her fore¬ 
bears on the maternal side, the Montgomerys, went 
with Daniel Boone to Kentucky, and were in the 
thick of the romantic and tragic events that accom¬ 
panied the settlement of the “ Dark and Bloody 
Ground,” and she herself was born there twenty- 
nine years after the first log cabin was built within 
the limits of the present commonwealth. She was 
one of the earliest, prettiest, and brightest of the 
many belles that have given Kentucky such an en¬ 
viable reputation as a nursery of fair women, and 
her vivacity and wit left no doubt in the minds of 
her friends concerning the source of her son’s genius. 

John Marshall Clemens, who had been trained for 
the bar in Virginia, served for some years as a mag¬ 
istrate at Hannibal, holding for a time the position 
of county judge. With his death, in March, 1847, 
Mark Twain’s formal education came to an end, and 


389 






MARK TWAIN 


his education in real life began. He had always been 
a delicate boy, and his father, in consequence, had 
been lenient in the matter of enforcing attendance at 
school, although he had been profoundly anxious 
that his children should be well educated. His wish 
was fulfilled, although not in the way he had ex¬ 
pected. It is a fortunate thing for literature that 
Mark Twain was never ground into smooth uni¬ 
formity under the scholastic emery wheel. He has 
made the world his university, and in men, and 
books, and strange places, and all the phases of an 
infinitely varied life, has built an education broad 
and deep, on the foundations of an undisturbed in¬ 
dividuality. 

His high school was a village printing-office, where 
his elder brother Orion was conducting a newspaper. 
The thirteen-year-old boy served in all capacities, 
and in the occasional absences of his chief he reveled 
in personal journalism, with original illustrations 
hacked on wooden blocks with a jack-knife, to an 
extent that riveted the town’s attention, “but not its 
admiration,” as his brother plaintively confessed. 
The editor spoke with feeling, for he had to take the 
consequences of these exploits on his return. 

From his earliest childhood young Clemens had 
been of an adventurous disposition. Before he was 
thirteen, he had been extracted three times from the 
Mississippi, and six times from Bear Creek, in a sub¬ 
stantially drowned condition, but his mother, with 
the high confidence in his future that never deserted 
her, merely remarked: “People who are born to be 
hanged are safe in the water.” By 1853 the Han- 

^a 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

■ 

nibal tether had become too short for him. He 
disappeared from home and wandered from one 
Eastern printing-office to another. He saw the 
World’s Fair at New York, and other marvels, 
and supported himself by setting type. At the 
end of this Wanderjahr, financial stress drove him 
back to his family. He lived at St. Louis, Mus¬ 
catine, and Keokuk until 1857, when he induced 
the great Horace Bixby to teach him the mystery 
of steamboat - piloting. The charm of all this 
warm, indolent existence in the sleepy river towns 
has colored his whole subsequent life. In Tom 
Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi, 
and Pudd'nhead Wilson, every phase of that van¬ 
ished estate is lovingly dwelt upon. 

Native character will always make itself felt, but 
one may wonder whether Mark Twain’s humor would 
have developed in quite so sympathetic and buoyant 
a vein if he had been brought up in Ecclefechan 
instead of in Hannibal, and whether Carlyle might 
not have been a little more human if he had spent 
his boyhood in Hannibal instead of in Ecclefechan. 

A Mississippi pilot in the later fifties was a per¬ 
sonage of imposing grandeur. He was a miracle 
of attainments; he was the absolute master of his 
boat while it was under way, and just before his 
fall he commanded a salary precisely equal to that 
earned at that time by the Vice-President of the 
United States or a Justice of the Supreme Court. 
The best proof of the superlative majesty and desira¬ 
bility of his position is the fact that Samuel Clemens 
deliberately subjected himself to the incredible labor 

39i 




MARK TWAIN 


necessary to attain it—a labor compared with which 
the efforts needed to acquire the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy at a university are as light as a summer 
course of modern novels. To appreciate the full 
meaning of a pilot’s marvelous education, one must 
read the whole of Life on the Mississippi , but this 
extract may give a partial idea of a single feature of 
that training—the cultivation of the memory: 

“First of all, there is one faculty which a pilot 
must incessantly cultivate until he has brought it 
to absolute perfection. Nothing short of perfection 
will do. That faculty is memory. He cannot stop 
with merely thinking a thing is so and so; he must 
know it; for this is eminently one of the exact 
sciences. With what scorn a pilot was looked upon, 
in the old times, if he ever ventured to deal in that 
feeble phrase ‘I think,’ instead of the vigorous one 
‘I know’! One cannot easily realize what a tre¬ 
mendous thing it is to know every trivial detail of 
twelve hundred miles of river, and know it with 
absolute exactness. If you will take the longest 
street in New York, and travel up and down it, 
conning its features patiently until you know every 
house, and window, and door, and lamp-post, and 
big and little sign by heart, and know them so 
accurately that you can instantly name the one you 
are abreast of when you are set down at random in 
that street in the middle of an inky black night, you 
will then have a tolerable notion of the amount and 
the exactness of a pilot’s knowledge who carries the 
Mississippi River in his head. And then, if you will 
go on until you know every street-crossing, the 

392 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


character, size, and position of the crossing-stones, 
and the varying depth of mud in each of those 
numberless places, you will have some idea of what 
the pilot must know in order to keep a Mississippi 
steamer out of trouble. Next, if you will take half 
of the .signs in that long street and change their places 
once a month, and still manage to know their new 
positions accurately on dark nights, and keep up with 
these repeated changes without making any mistakes, 
you will understand what is required of a pilot's 
peerless memory by the fickle Mississippi. 

“I think a pilot’s memory is about the most 
wonderful thing in the world. To know the Old and 
New Testaments by heart, and be able to recite 
them glibly, forward or backward, or begin at random 
anywhere in the book and recite both ways, and 
never trip or make a mistake, is no extravagant mass 
of knowledge, and no marvelous facility, compared 
to a pilot’s massed knowledge of the Mississippi, and 
his marvelous facility in handling it. . . . 

“And how easily and comfortably the pilot’s mem¬ 
ory does its work; how placidly effortless is its way; 
how unconsciously it lays up its vast stores, hour by 
hour, day by day, and never loses or mislays a single 
valuable package of them all! Take an instance. 
Let a leadsman say: ‘Half twain! half twain! half 
twain! half twain! half twain!’ until it becomes as 
monotonous as the ticking of a clock; let conversa¬ 
tion be going on all the time, and the pilot be doing 
his share of the talking, and no longer consciously 
listening to the leadsman; and in the midst of this 
endless string of half twains let a single ‘quarter 
26 393 






MARK TWAIN 


twain!’ be interjected, without emphasis, and then 
the half-twain cry go on again, just as before: two 
or three weeks later that pilot can describe with 
precision the boat’s position in the river when that 
quarter twain was uttered, and give you such a lot 
of head marks, stern marks, and side marks to guide 
you that you ought to be able to take the boat there 
and put her in that same spot again yourself! The 
cry of ‘Quarter twain!’ did not really take his mind 
from his talk, but his trained faculties instantly 
photographed the bearings, noted the change of 
depth, and laid up the important details for future 
reference without requiring any assistance from him 
in the matter.” 

Young Clemens went through all that appalling 
training, stored away in his head the bewildering 
mass of knowledge a pilot’s duties required, received 
the license that was the diploma of the river uni¬ 
versity, entered into regular employment, and re¬ 
garded himself as established for life, when the 
outbreak of the Civil War wiped out his occupation 
at a stroke, and made his weary apprenticeship a 
useless labor. The commercial navigation of the 
lower Mississippi was stopped by a line of fire, and 
black, squat gunboats, their sloping sides plated with 
railroad iron, took the place of the gorgeous white 
side-wheelers, whose pilots had been the envied 
aristocrats of the river towns. Clemens was in 
New Orleans when Louisiana seceded, and started 
North the next day. The boat ran a blockade 
every day of her trip, and on the last night of 
the voyage the batteries at the Jefferson barracks, 

394 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


just below St. Louis, fired two shots through her 
chimneys. 

Brought up in a slaveholding atmosphere, Mark 
Twain naturally sympathized at first with the South. 
In June he joined the Confederates in Ralls County, 
Missouri, as a second lieutenant under General 
Tom Harris. His military career lasted for two 
weeks. Narrowly missing the distinction of being 
captured by Colonel Ulysses S. Grant, he resigned, 
explaining that he had become “incapacitated by 
fatigue” through persistent retreating. In his sub¬ 
sequent writings he has always treated his brief 
experience of warfare as a burlesque episode, although 
the official reports and correspondence of the Con¬ 
federate commanders speak very respectfully of the 
work of the raw countrymen of the Harris Brigade. 
The elder Clemens brother, Orion, was persona grata 
to the Administration of President Lincoln, and 
received in consequence an appointment as the first 
Secretary of the new Territory of Nevada. He 
offered his speedily reconstructed junior the position 
of private secretary to himself, “with nothing to do 
and no salary.” The two crossed the plains in the 
Overland coach in eighteen days—almost precisely 
the time it will take to go from New York to Vladi¬ 
vostok when the Trans-Siberian Railway is finished. 

A year of variegated fortune-hunting among the 
silver-mines of the Humboldt and Esmeralda regions 
I followed. Occasional letters written during this 
time to the leading newspaper of the territory, the 
Virginia City Territorial Enterprise , attracted the 
attention of the proprietor, Mr. J. T. Goodman, a 

395 




MARK TWAIN 


man of keen and unerring literary instinct, and he 
offered the writer the position of local editor on his 
staff. With the duties of this place were combined 
those of legislative correspondent at Carson City, the 
capital. The work of young Clemens created a sen¬ 
sation among the lawmakers. He wrote a weekly 
letter, spined with barbed personalities. It ap¬ 
peared every Sunday, and on Mondays the legis¬ 
lative business was obstructed with the complaints 
of members who rose to questions of privilege, and 
expressed their opinion of the correspondent with 
acerbity. This encouraged him to give his letters 
more individuality by signing them. For this pur¬ 
pose he adopted the old Mississippi leadsman’s call 
for two fathoms (twelve feet)—“Mark Twain.” 

At that particular period dueling was a passing 
fashion on the Comstock. The refinements of 
Parisian civilization had not penetrated there, and a 
Washoe duel seldom left more than one survivor. 
The weapons were always Colt’s navy revolvers— 
distance, fifteen paces; fire and advance; six shots 
allowed. Mark Twain became involved in a quarrel 
with Mr. Laird, the editor of the Virginia Union , and 
the situation seemed to call for a duel. Neither 
combatant was an expert with the pistol, but Mark 
Twain was fortunate enough to have a second who 
was. The men were practising in adjacent gorges, 
Mr. Laird doing fairly well, and his opponent hitting 
everything but the mark. A small bird lit on a sage- 
bush thirty yards away, and Mark Twain’s second 
fired and knocked off its head. At that moment the 
enemy came over the ridge, saw the dead bird, 

396 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

observed the distance, and learned from Gillis, the 
humorist’s second, that the feat had been performed 
by Mark Twain, for whom such an exploit was 
nothing remarkable. They withdrew for consulta¬ 
tion, and then offered a formal apology, after which 
peace was restored, leaving Mark Twain with the 
honors of war. 

However, this incident was the means of effecting 
another change in his life. There was a new law 
which prescribed two years’ imprisonment for any 
one who should send, carry, or accept a challenge. 
The fame of the proposed duel had reached the 
capital, eighteen miles away, and the governor 
wrathfully gave orders for the arrest of all concerned, 
announcing his intention of making an example that 
would be remembered. A friend of the duelists 
heard of their danger, outrode the officers of the 
law, and hurried the parties over the border into 
California. 

Mark Twain found a berth as city editor of the San 
Francisco Morning Call , but he was not adapted to 
routine newspaper work, and in a couple of years he 
made another bid for fortune in the mines. He tried 
the “pocket-mines” of California, this time, at Jack¬ 
ass Gulch, in Calaveras County, but was fortunate 
enough to find no pockets. Thus he escaped the 
hypnotic fascination that has kept some intermittent¬ 
ly successful pocket-miners willing prisoners in Sierra 
cabins for life, and in three months he was back in 
San Francisco, penniless, but in the line of literary 
promotion. He wrote letters for the Virginia Enter¬ 
prise for a time, but, tiring of that, welcomed an as- 

397 






MARK TWAIN 


signment to visit Hawaii for the Sacramento Union 
and write about the sugar interests. It was in 
Honolulu that he accomplished one of his greatest 
feats of “straight newspaper work.” The clipper 
Hornet had been burned on “the line,” and when 
the skeleton survivors arrived, after a passage of 
forty-three days in an open boat on ten days’ pro¬ 
visions, Mark Twain gathered their stories, worked 
all day and all night, and threw a complete account 
of the horror aboard a schooner that had already 
cast off. It was the only full account that reached 
California, and it was not only a clean “scoop” of 
unusual magnitude, but an admirable piece of literary 
art. The Union testified its appreciation by paying 
the correspondent ten times the current rates for it. 

After six months in the islands, Mark Twain re¬ 
turned to California, and made his first venture upon 
the lecture platform. He was warmly received, and 
delivered several lectures with profit. In 1867 he 
went East by way of the Isthmus, and joined the 
Quaker City excursion to Europe and the Holy Land, 
as correspondent of the Alta California , of San 
Francisco. During this tour of five or six months 
the party visited the principal ports of the Mediter¬ 
ranean and the Black Sea. From this trip grew 
The Innocents Abroad , the creator of Mark Twain’s 
reputation as a literary force of the first order. 
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County had 
preceded it, but The Innocents gave the author his 
first introduction to international literature. A hun¬ 
dred thousand copies were sold the first year, and 
as many more later. 


398 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


Four years of lecturing followed—distasteful, but 
profitable. Mark Twain always shrank from the 
public exhibition of himself on the platform, but he 
was a popular favorite there from the first. He was 
one of a little group, including Henry Ward Beecher 
and two or three others, for whom every lyceum com¬ 
mittee in the country was bidding, and whose cap¬ 
ture at any price insured the success of a lecture 
course. 

The Quaker City excursion had a more important 
result than the production of The Innocents Abroad. 
Through her brother, who was one of the party, Mr. 
Clemens became acquainted with Miss Olivia L. 
Langdon, the daughter of Jervis Langdon, of Elmira, 
New York, and this acquaintance led, in February, 
1870, to one of the most ideal marriages in literary 
history. 

Four children came of this union. The eldest, 
Langdon, a son, was born in November, 1870, and 
died in 1872. The second, Susan Olivia, a daughter, 
was born in the latter year, and lived only twenty- 
four years, but long enough to develop extraordinary 
mental gifts and every grace of character. Two 
other daughters, Clara Langdon and Jean, were born 
in 1874 and 1880, respectively, and still live (1899). 

Mark Twain’s first home as a man of family was 
in Buffalo, in a house given to the bride by her father 
as a wedding present. He bought a third interest 
in a daily newspaper, the Buffalo Express, and 
joined its staff. But his time for jogging in harness 
was past. It was his last attempt at regular news¬ 
paper work, and a year of it was enough. He had 

399 





MARK TWAIN 


become assured of a market for anything he might 
produce, and he could choose his own place and 
time for writing. 

There was a tempting literary colony at Hartford; 
the place was steeped in an atmosphere of antique 
peace and beauty, and the Clemens family were 
captivated by its charm. They moved there in 
October, 1871, and soon built a house which was 
one of the earliest fruits of the artistic revolt against 
the mid-century Philistinism of domestic architecture 
in America. For years it was an object of wonder 
to the simple-minded tourist. The facts that its 
rooms were arranged for the convenience of those 
who were to occupy them, and that its windows, 
gables, and porches were distributed with an eye to 
the beauty, comfort, and picturesqueness of that 
particular house, instead of following the traditional 
lines laid down by the carpenters and contractors 
who designed most of the dwellings of the period, 
distracted the critics, and gave rise to grave dis¬ 
cussions in the newspapers throughout the country 
of “Mark Twain’s practical joke.” 

The years that followed brought a steady literary 
development. Roughing It, which was written in 
1872, and scored a success hardly second to that 
of The Innocents, was, like that, simply a humor¬ 
ous narrative of personal experiences, variegated 
by brilliant splashes of description; but with The 
Gilded Age, which was produced in the same year, 
in collaboration with Mr. Charles Dudley Warner, 
the humorist began to evolve into the philosopher. 
Tom Sawyer, appearing in 1876, was a veritable 

400 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


manual of boy nature, and its sequel, Huckleberry 
Finn , which was published nine years later, was not 
only an advanced treatise in the same science, but 
a most moving study of the workings of the un¬ 
tutored human soul, in boy and man. The Prince 
and the Pauper (1882), A Connecticut Yankee at King 
Arthur s Court (1890), and Pudd'nhead Wilson (first 
published serially in 1893-94), were all alive with a 
comprehensive and passionate sympathy to which 
their humor was quite subordinate, although Mark 
Twain never wrote, and probably never will write, 
a book that could be read without laughter. His 
humor is as irrepressible as Lincoln’s, and like that, 
it bubbles out on the most solemn occasions; but 
still, again like Lincoln’s, it has a way of seeming, 
in spite of the surface incongruity, to belong there. 
But it was in the Personal Recollections of Joan of 
Arc, whose anonymous serial publication in 1894-95 
betrayed some critics of reputation into the absurdity 
of attributing it to other authors, notwithstanding 
the characteristic evidences of its paternity that 
obtruded themselves on every page, that Mark 
Twain became most distinctly a prophet of human¬ 
ity. Here, at last, was a book with nothing ephem¬ 
eral about it—one that will reach the elemental 
human heart as well among the flying-machines of 
the next century as it does among the automobiles 
of to-day, or as it would have done among the stage¬ 
coaches of a hundred years ago. 

And side by side with this spiritual growth had 
come a growth in knowledge and in culture. The 
Mark Twain of The Innocents , keen-eyed, quick of 

401 




MARK TWAIN 


understanding, and full of fresh, eager interest in 
all Europe had to show, but frankly avowing that he 
‘'did not know what in the mischief the Renaissance 
was,” had developed into an accomplished scholar 
and a man of the world for whom the globe had few 
surprises left. The Mark Twain of 1895 might con¬ 
ceivably have written The Innocents Abroad , al¬ 
though it would have required an effort to put him¬ 
self in the necessary frame of mind, but the Mark 
Twain of 1869 could no more have written Joan 
of Arc than he could have deciphered the Maya 
hieroglyphics. 

In 1873 the family spent some months in England 
and Scotland, and Mr. Clemens lectured for a few 
weeks in London. Another European journey fol¬ 
lowed in 1878. 

A Tramp Abroad was the result of this tour, which 
lasted eighteen months. The Prince and the Pauper , 
Life on the Mississippi , and Huckleberry Finn ap¬ 
peared in quick succession in 1882, 1883, and 1885. 
Considerably more amusing than anything the 
humorist ever wrote was the fact that the trustees 
of some village libraries in New England solemnly 
voted that Huckleberry Finn , whose power of moral 
uplift has hardly been surpassed by any book of 
our time, was too demoralizing to be allowed on their 
shelves. 

All this time fortune had been steadily favorable, 
and Mark Twain had been spoken of by the press, 
sometimes with admiration, as an example of the 
financial success possible in literature, and sometimes 
with uncharitable envy, as a haughty millionaire, 

402 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 


forgetful of his humble friends. But now began the 
series of unfortunate investments that swept away 
the accumulations of half a lifetime of hard work, 
and left him loaded with debts incurred by other 
men. In 1885 he financed the publishing-house of 
Charles L. Webster & Co. in New York. The 
firm began business with the prestige of a brilliant 
coup. It secured the publication of the Memoirs 
of General Grant, which achieved a sale of more 
than 600,000 volumes. The first check received 
by the Grant heirs was for $200,000, and this was 
followed a few months later by one for $150,000. 
These are the largest checks ever paid for an author’s 
work on either side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, 
Mr. Clemens was spending great sums on a type¬ 
setting machine of such seductive ingenuity as to 
captivate the imagination of everybody who saw it. 
It worked to perfection, but it was too complicated 
and expensive for commercial use, and after sinking 
a fortune in it between 1886 and 1889 Mark Twain 
had to write off the whole investment as a dead loss. 

On top of this the publishing-house, which had 
been supposed to be doing a profitable business, 
turned out to have been incapably conducted, and 
all the money that came into its hands was lost. 
Mark Twain contributed $65,000 in efforts to save 
its life, but to no purpose, and, when it finally failed, 
he found that it had not only absorbed everything 
he had put in, but had incurred liabilities of $96,000, 
of which less than one-third was covered by assets. 

He could easily have avoided any legal liability for 
the debts, but as the credit of the company had been 

4°3 


MARK TWAIN 


based largely upon his name, he felt bound in honor 
to pay them. In 1895-96 he took his wife and 
second daughter on a lecturing tour around the 
world, wrote Following the Equator , and cleared off 
the obligations of the house in full. 

The years 1897, 1898, and 1899 were spent in 
England, Switzerland, and Austria. Vienna took 
the family to its heart, and Mark Twain achieved 
such a popularity among all classes there as is rarely 
won by a foreigner anywhere. He saw the manu¬ 
facture of a good deal of history in that time. It 
was his fortune, for instance, to be present in the 
Austrian Reichsrath on the memorable occasion when 
it was invaded by sixty policemen, and sixteen re¬ 
fractory members were dragged roughly out of the 
hall. That momentous event in the progress of 
parliamentary government profoundly impressed 
him. 

Mark Twain, although so characteristically Ameri¬ 
can in every fiber, does not appeal to Americans 
alone, nor even to the English-speaking race. His 
work has stood the test of translation into French, 
German, Russian, Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, and 
Magyar. That is pretty good evidence that it pos¬ 
sesses the universal quality that marks the master. 
Another evidence of its fidelity to human nature is 
the readiness with which it lends itself to dramatiza¬ 
tion. The Gilded Age, Tom Sawyer, The Prince and 
the Pauper, and Pudd’nhead Wilson have all been 
successful on the stage. 

In the thirty-eight years of his literary activity 
Mark Twain has seen generation after generation of 

4°4 


A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

“American humorists” rise, expand into sudden 
popularity, and disappear, leaving hardly a memory 
behind. If he has not written himself out like them, 
if his place in literature has become every year more 
assured, it is because his “humor” has been some¬ 
thing radically different from theirs. It has been 
irresistibly laughter-provoking, but its sole end has 
never been to make people laugh. Its more im¬ 
portant purpose has been to make them think and 
feel. And with the progress of the years Mark 
Twain’s own thoughts have become finer, his own 
feelings deeper and more responsive. Sympathy 
with the suffering, hatred of injustice and oppression, 
and enthusiasm for all that tends to make the world 
a more tolerable place for mankind to live in, have 
grown with his accumulating knowledge of life as it 
is. That is why Mark Twain has become a classic, 
not only at home, but in all lands whose people read 
and think about the common joys and sorrows of 
humanity. 


THE END 









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